"The United States needs to face up to the stark reality of child poverty" (In-depth observation)

Source: People's Daily

The data shows that the child poverty rate in the United States has risen to 16.6%, and American experts emphasize that -

"The United States needs to face up to the stark reality of child poverty" (In-depth observation)

Child poverty in the United States has persisted for a long time. According to a recent article by the Center for Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, the child poverty rate in the United States has increased from 12.1% in December 2021 to 16.6% in May 2022, an increase of 3.3 million children living in poverty due to the expiration of the child tax credits in the bailout act during the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts pointed out that the problem of child poverty is a microcosm of many social ills in the United States, which is closely related to the huge gap between the rich and the poor, inadequate social security, and deep-rooted racism.

Child poverty rates are much higher than in other developed countries

Official U.S. statistics show that the total number of poor children in the United States reached 12.31 million as of February this year. But U.S. columnist Jeff Madrique, in his book The Invisible Child: The Cost of Child Poverty in America, argues that if measured by fairer, newer standards, the real number of poor people in the United States is about 60 million, and the number of real poor children may exceed 20 million.

According to a study by Children's International, the current child poverty rate in the United States is much higher than in other developed countries, and nearly 40% of American children are in poverty for at least one year before the age of 18. A survey by the Center for American Progress, a policy research institute, found that many children in the United States are unable to meet even basic food and clothing, and the epidemic has exacerbated this situation.

According to US media reports, in some remote areas of the United States, especially in some communities dominated by colored ethnic groups, children have long suffered from poverty. According to the American Child Protection Foundation, 71 percent of poor children in the United States are people of color, and as many as 3.6 million are under the age of 6, of whom 1.6 million live in extreme poverty. Other data show that the poverty rates for African-American and Hispanic children reached 24.9 percent and 23.4 percent, respectively, more than double the poverty rates of white children.

In Jefferson County, Mississippi, for example, many families are of African descent and many families have lived in poverty for generations, according to local media reports. In October 2020, a non-profit organization survey found that more than half of the children in Jefferson County had food shortages, especially after the outbreak, many poor students had a big problem eating due to school closures. Andrew Hammitt, the head of the local school district, said there are about 1,100 school-age children in the district, 98 percent of whom are of African descent, and they all need free meals. If they don't eat free meals at school, they may not be able to eat for a day.

The US media commented that the problem of child poverty in Jefferson County is not an isolated case, it has long existed in American society, and the epidemic has highlighted this problem. This long-standing ill is also difficult to address in the short term.

The human rights and childhood deprivation of poor children are prominent

Poor children in the United States face challenges such as violence, drugs, discrimination, and more. According to Madrijack, 40 percent of children from all low-income families attend "schools of extreme poverty," and poor children are 1.3 times more likely to face learning disabilities than the average child. Poverty also affects the salary and income of these children as adults, and it is even more difficult for poor children, especially people of color, to break through the class restraints when they grow up. "Poor children live in the double pain of physical and psychological life for a long time, and the shadow of childhood poverty will accompany them for life."

Sarah Mehta, director of trial observation projects at the Human Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, noted that the denial of human rights and childhood to poor children in the United States is prominent in the criminal justice system. A child as young as 6 years old was handcuffed and taken from a classroom because of a tantrum; Others were arrested for arguing with teachers or for graffiti on desks. "This early and unnecessary police intervention has put these children on a path full of shadows, many of whom are poor children, people of color, etc." Mehta said.

Recently, Reuters, American Public Radio, ABC and other media outlets exposed the illegal employment of child labor in a factory in Alabama. According to the police, the factory has been the phenomenon of illegal abuse of poor children, many minors even drop out of school for long shifts, and some child laborers are only 12 years old but engage in high-risk work such as metalworking and processing.

The Nonprofit FarmWorker Employment Training Program estimates that at least 500,000 child laborers in the United States are engaged in agricultural labor, and child labor deaths occur frequently. A Washington Post report noted that between 2003 and 2016 alone, 452 children died from work in the United States, of which 237 child laborers died in agricultural production accidents, accounting for more than half. In addition, tobacco farms in many states in the United States employ a large number of children to harvest and dry tobacco leaves, and many children have nicotine poisoning, and even found to be infected in the lungs, and their physical and mental health has been greatly damaged.

THE CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD IS THE FASTEST RATIFIED HUMAN RIGHTS TREATY IN HISTORY, BUT THE UNITED STATES IS THE ONLY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD THAT HAS NOT RATIFIED THE UN CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD. Mehta criticized that there was no reason why the United States should not ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but that, instead, it urgently needed to ratify the Convention.

"The problem of child poverty is a national shame in the United States"

Aleba Haider, a researcher at the Center for American Progress, noted that the United States lacks a comprehensive social safety net to protect children, and that children's economic security is closely linked to the income level of their guardians. Over the past few decades, the gap between rich and poor in the United States has widened dramatically. In 2019, the poorest 20 percent of the U.S. population earned only about 3 percent of the total income of the entire population, while the richest 20 percent had more than half of their income. "Unfortunately, the U.S. economic system is not designed to support all families." According to an article published on the U.S. Policy Institute's Inequality Project website, "child poverty is a national shame in the United States."

American political scientist Paul Yargowski also noted that the incidence of concentrated poverty in the United States began to rise rapidly in the late 1990s and has reached an all-time high in recent years. In extremely poor neighborhoods, low-income families have less access to education, employment, and medical benefits, and the dropout rate and crime rate remain high, and it is easier to form class solidification. Luke Shaffer, director of the University of Michigan's Poverty Solutions Program, believes that the problem of child poverty in the United States stems from the severe division of wealth and welfare in society.

Many American scholars have pointed out that miscalculations of poverty are actually "deliberate." Denton Vaughan, a social security analyst in the United States, said: "Updating the poverty measurement data will change the way we think about the size of the poor. But it is clear that policy sensitivity to poverty will make it difficult for some to revise the poverty measures currently in use. ”

Madridk argues that the United States is a country that has historically been biased against poverty and cannot even reach a consensus on "how many poor Americans there are," let alone cut back the number of poor people and poor children. It is time for the United States to change its approach to poverty, and "the United States needs to face up to the harsh reality of child poverty," Madrique stressed.

(Washington, August 8, 2019)