Helping low-income children means helping their families
Published November 12, 2014
by Chris Fitzsimon, NC Policy Watch and NC SPIN panelist, November 12, 2014.
A new report about child and family poverty from the Annie E. Casey Foundation ought to be required reading for new and returning state lawmakers and Governor Pat McCrory and his staff ought to take a long hard look at it too.
It reminds us that twenty-six percent of children in North Carolina live in poverty. For children of color, the poverty rate is 40 percent. That’s shocking, but not news. Those shameful statistics were already out there, though somehow were not part of the debate in the recent election.
The new report, “Creating Opportunity for Family; A Two-Generation Approach,” powerfully makes the often forgotten point that to help low-income kids, you must help their families too.
There are 358,000 low-income families in North Carolina and in half of them no parent has a full-time, year-round job. And many that do are paid by the hour with no sick leave, no family leave, no way to get their child to a doctor or an after-school counseling session without losing pay or even putting their job at risk.
And it’s even tougher for poor families with young children. The report finds that there are more than 400,000 children in North Carolina age 5 and under in low-income families and 18 percent of their parents report that issues with child care affected their employment.
State lawmakers made things worse in that regard last session, changing the eligibility guidelines to make 12,000 low-income children no longer eligible for a child care subsidy. The justification was to reduce the waiting list to serve the poorest children by ignoring thousands of other low-income kids.
The other choice was to increase funding for the program to help more children, not fewer, but tax cuts and other priorities were apparently more important.
Almost a third of young kids in low-income families are at risk for developmental delays, yet the General Assembly keeps slashing early childhood programs that can help and offering fewer at-risk kids the chance to enroll in NC PreK which increases their chances of succeeding in school.
In 79 percent of the poor families, no parent has at least an associate degree. That means low-wage and unsteady work is all that is available if they are fortunate enough to find work at all.
Last year the General Assembly ended the state Earned Income Tax Credit that helps low-wage workers and their families. It was part of “tax reform” that gave corporations a huge tax break and millionaires a $10,000 windfall, costing the state at least $704 million this year.
That’s a lot of day care subsidies and PreK slots and tax credits for hard-working low-income families.
Expanding Medicaid would help too and Governor McCrory and outgoing House Speaker Thom Tillis seem to finally be realizing that it makes sense, though Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger shows no sign of softening his rigid ideological opposition to expansion, no matter how many families and children it would help and how many jobs it would create.
And then there’s education, where to no one’s surprise, low income students often struggle because of hurdles their poverty creates. Yet cuts continue to teacher assistants and school counselors. Teachers have larger classes and fewer people to support their students.
It’s not only a scandal that 26 percent of our state’s children live in poverty–with thousands more in families with meager incomes just above the arbitrary line—it’s the defining issue of our time.
The most well-known publication of the Annie E. Casey Foundation is called Kids Count. This latest report makes it clear that families count too.
Now if we can only get our policymakers to understand that and start doing something about it instead of making things worse.
http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2014/11/12/helping-low-income-children-means-helping-their-families/
November 12, 2014 at 8:57 am
Richard Bunce says:
You do not help poor children or poor families by hiring more overpaid and unproductive government bureaucrats. You want to get rid of all the government social engineering nonsense and go to a guaranteed income program that would be something to consider... otherwise this is just about growing government not reducing poverty.
November 12, 2014 at 9:18 am
Norm Kelly says:
The headline once again gives away the author.
'the Annie E. Casey Foundation' is a lib or at least left-leaning organization. This organization, no doubt, has the goal of pointing out, on a regular and recurring basis, how badly conservatives, Republicans, and selfish earners are NOT supporting 'the poor' as much as they should. How do we know that 'the Annie E. Casey Foundation' is a lib organization? Simple. First, they are referenced by Chris. Second, when referenced by a lib there are no derogatory adjectives associated with the name of the organization. Whenever a lib makes reference to an organization without a descriptive, it's a lib organization that the lib author agrees with. Whenever a lib makes reference to an organization that is either conservative or leans right, it is preceded with adjectives, oftentimes derogatory adjectives. But always with an adjective to let readers know the author despises, does not trust the source, and wants readers to also believe the source is not trustworthy.
'Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger shows no sign of softening his rigid ideological opposition to expansion'. As opposed to libs & socialists who show no sign of softening their rigid ideological determination to penalize success, increase government give-away and subsistence payments, demonize 'the wealthy', insist that the facts showing increased spending on education do not translate to increased performance for kids, government monopoly schools should never have private sector competition, sales taxes should always be raised, and all the other solidly socialist schemes put forth by your local lib pol and editorialist. Consider socialized medicine for just a moment. Proven failure across the globe. Proven inferior to the medical system created in the free market (that would be the former United States!). Forced upon us by the demons in Washington. Admittedly told lies to the American people in order to make it APPEAR palatable. Lied to the CBO in order to make scoring it virtually impossible. Lied to American citizens about whether it would or would not cover illegal aliens (it will, they told us it would not!). Also consider the illogical statements by the occupier when it comes to certain taxes. When told that increasing one of the taxes on 'the wealthy' would decrease the amount actually stolen from people by the increased tax, the occupier indicated that the decrease in government income wasn't the issue, the issue was penalizing those who dared make 'too much'. Social engineering. Pitting one group of Americans against another group of Americans.
The most recent election may be dismissed by libs, socialists, and Chris but, to quote the occupier, elections have consequences. It's time that socialist schemes be put in perspective. It's time conservatives get to make the rules, and get back to the founding principals of the country, that made us the most prosperous country in the world. Socialism has proven that it destroys individual lives, destroys economies, reduces individual wealth as well as national wealth, among many other destructive tendencies. Yet, we see socialists in this country, editorialists, pols, parties, continue to beat the drum of increased socialism even in the midst of repudiation of their schemes. Will Republicans in Raleigh and Washington do what the voters sent them to do? Will socialists ever give up? Hopefully the Republicans will govern according to the desires of the majority (who voted!). Hopefully the occupier's desire to listen to the 2/3 who didn't vote will not infect the Republican majority. The state level Repubs have started making progress on reversing socialism. Let's hope they have the will power to continue to move us along the right and proper path in the future. Expansion of mediscare is doomed to failure. It's time has definitely NOT come! Will the socialists ever give up? To a certain extent I hope not. We always need a few socialists around. The fewer the better for EVERYONE, but a few must remain. Of course, the only reason to have a minority of socialists around is so we always know the direction to head AWAY from; so we always know what NOT to do; so we always know what is the DESTRUCTIVE direction. With a few socialists continuing to inform us of their schemes, we'll know without doubt what will work, and to continue to keep THEM in the minority.
