A Nation's Shame: Trillions in New Wealth, Millions of Children in Poverty
(Photo: Ian Carroll)
America's wealth grew by 60 percent in the past six years, by over $30 trillion. In approximately the same time, the number of homeless children has also grown by 60 percent.
Financier and CEO Peter Schiff said, "People don't go hungry in a capitalist economy." The 16 million kids on food stamps know what it's like to go hungry. Perhaps, some in Congress would say, those children should be working. "There is no such thing as a free lunch," insisted Georgia Representative Jack Kingston, even for schoolkids, who should be required to "sweep the floor of the cafeteria" (as they actually do at acharter school in Texas).
The callousness of US political and business leaders is disturbing, shocking. Hunger is just one of the problems of our children. Teacher Sonya Romero-Smith told about the two little homeless girls she adopted: "Getting rid of bedbugs, that took us a while. Night terrors, that took a little while. Hoarding food.."
America Is a 'Leader' in Child Poverty
The US has one of the highest relative child poverty rates in the developed world. As UNICEFreports, "[Children's] material well-being is highest in the Netherlands and in the four Nordic countries and lowest in Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and the United States."
Over half of public school students are poor enough to qualify for lunch subsidies, and almost half of black children under the age of six are living in poverty.
$5 a Day for Food - But Congress Thought it Was Too Much
Nearly half of all food stamp recipients are children, and they averaged about $5 a day for their meals before the 2014 farm bill cut $8.6 billion (over the next ten years) from the food stamp program.
In 2007 about 12 of every 100 kids were on food stamps. Today it's 20 of every 100.
For Every Two Homeless Children in 2006, There Are Now Three
On a typical frigid night in January, 138,000 children, according to the US Department of Housing, were without a place to call home.
That's about the same number of households that have each increased their wealth by $10 million per year since the recession.
The US: Near the Bottom in Education and Sinking
The US ranks near the bottom of the developed world in the percentage of 4-year-olds in early childhood education. Early education should be a primary goal for the future, as numerous studies have shown that pre-school helps all children to achieve more and earn more through adulthood, with the most disadvantaged A Nation's Shame: Trillions in New Wealth, Millions of Children in Poverty: