Past Insights

Charles Blow of The New York Times recently selected some of the saddest and most depressing statics from the recently released “The State of America’s Children 2011” report, issued last month by the Children’s Defense Fund.  The report highlights the impact of the recession on our children’s well being. The results are nothing short of catastrophic.

While we argue about whether corporations should pay taxes, how much richer the rich could get and whether we can afford to reduce our military spending when we already spend more than the rest of the world combined, our nation’s children are falling further and further behind.

Blow highlights some of the depressing numbers. Consider that:

• The number of children living in poverty increased by 4 million since 2000.
• The number of children who fell into poverty between 2008 and 2009 was the largest single-year increase ever recorded.
• The number of homeless children in public schools increased 41 percent between the 2006-7 and 2008-9 school years.
• In 2009, an average of 15.6 million children received food stamps monthly, a 65 percent increase over 10 years.
• A majority of children in all racial groups and 79 percent or more of black and Hispanic children in public schools cannot read or do math at grade level in the fourth, eighth or 12th grades.
• The annual cost of center-based child care for a 4-year-old is more than the annual in-state tuition at a public four-year college in 33 states and the District of Columbia.

And it’s about to get a lot worse.

Blow also notes that the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out:

“Of the 47 states with newly enacted budgets, 38 or more states are making deep, identifiable cuts in K-12 education, higher education, health care, or other key areas in their budgets for fiscal year 2012. Even as states face rising numbers of children enrolled in public schools, students enrolled in universities, and seniors eligible for services, the vast majority of states (37 of 44 states for which data are available) plan to spend less on services in 2012 than they spent in 2008 — in some cases, much less.”

If we ever emerge from this economic crisis, we will sadly have left many millions of our children behind. They may never recover.