As the new year’s news cycles turn to presidential politics and primary contests, there is another story our leaders should be talking a lot about -- and acting to alleviate. End-of-year news stories about holiday spending happily reported on the unexpectedly high totals many Americans spent -- or put on credit -- this year. But for millions of families there was another story: how to provide enough food and shelter and keep alive the spirit, wonder, and joy of the season for their children when resources are scarce?
Darryl and Jeanna Barrett are both college graduates who together earned about $60,000 a year. Blessed with three beautiful daughters, they survived Hurricane Katrina and bought a home in New Orleans, eager to help rebuild their city. According to Darryl, they were “on the road to the American dream.” Then he became disabled and Jeanna lost her job. Their current income -- Darryl’s Social Security disability and Jeanna’s unemployment insurance -- places them just barely above the official poverty level for a family of five.
The Barrett girls, Anjerrica, 15, Daryanna, 10, and Jaeda, 7, would go hungry without food stamps, free school lunches, and a local food pantry.
The family recently qualified for food stamps. The Barrett girls, Anjerrica, 15, Daryanna, 10, and Jaeda, 7, would go hungry without food stamps, free school lunches, and a local food pantry. Darryl has been going to the food pantry at the nearby Community Center of St. Bernard every week and can’t say enough about how “tremendous” the center has been for them. “I called last year our $36 Christmas. That’s how much money we had in the bank. The center made sure we had a turkey. They got a sponsor who got the girls bikes. We went to their toy drive… if it hadn’t been for them, we wouldn’t have had any Christmas,” Darryl recently told Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Julia Cass, on assignment in New Orleans for the Children’s Defense Fund.
The economic rise and fall of the Barrett family mirrors what has happened to so many Americans who were moving up into the middle class but fell backwards in the past few years. The Barretts’ hard times resulted from the double whammy of disability and recession. Darryl graduated from Loyola University with a degree in computer systems. He worked for a casino company linking up statewide games in casinos around the state. But when he injured his back and a disc in his neck while moving a heavy piece of furniture, pressure from the disc injury severely damaged the nerves in his arms. Two years of physical therapy and a surgery failed to restore the use of his arms and he was approved for Social Security disability payments of $1,550 per month.
Meanwhile, Jeanna graduated from Xavier University with a degree in chemistry. She worked as a pharmacy technician and science teacher in a Catholic school before going to work at a non-profit organization providing after-school and summer programs for low-income children in 2004. But she lost her job when the program lost state funding in 2010. In October 2011, Jeanna got what she calls a “part-time part-time” job -- working at a cell phone company two days a week, three hours a day at $8 an hour. “Of all my applications, this was the only place that wanted to hire me,” she says. But the Barretts know this job is not even a short-term solution to their tough financial problems.
Sadly, the Barrett children were in the majority this year. In November, the Census Bureau released its first report using a new way of measuring poverty in America -- the Supplemental Poverty Measure. This new measure won’t replace the official poverty measure but it’s an important tool to give us a more nuanced picture of poverty today.
The Supplemental Poverty Measure monitors common household expenses including food, clothing, shelter, and utilities and adjusts for regional differences. Income calculations include the value of federal nutrition programs, tax breaks like the earned-income tax credit, and housing subsidies, but subtract taxes paid, work and child care expenses, medical expenses, and child support payments. These more detailed calculations yielded some surprising results.
The majority of children in America -- a stunning 56.7 percent -- are either poor or low-income with these calculations compared to 43.9 percent using the official measure. While there is a substantial rise in the number of children considered low-income, the child poverty rate itself was actually lower using the new measure. This is important because it shows the effectiveness of key programs in lifting children out of poverty especially child and family nutrition programs, housing subsidies, and the earned-income tax credit. These programs had the largest positive impact on children’s lives.
Now that we know the majority of children in America are at risk -- including families like the Barretts -- and need a lot of help right now to stay afloat, we must act. The details the Supplemental Poverty Measure captures give us a fuller picture of poverty’s reach during these perilous economic times and should serve as a road map to help our leaders and policymakers see what’s helping and what’s hurting. The proof of effectiveness of crucial safety net investments shows the wisdom of expanding refundable tax credits and nutrition programs to stave off widespread hunger. All of us must urge our legislators right now to make the right choices with our tax dollars and use them to benefit the majority of our children struggling to survive and thrive on too little rather than non-needy powerful special interests.
Follow Marian Wright Edelman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ChildDefender
Billy Shore: Child Hunger Finding Its Place in the National Conversation?
The fact that cash assistance to the poor and unemployment insurance is about 2% of the federal budget does not mean that the poor can’t be used as a financial scapegoat. Of course, that is EXACTLY what it means for the reality based community, but it is still the number 1 play in the wingnut playbook.
So wingnuts, tenaciously hold on to your wingnut ideology as the US resembles the income distribution profile of 3rd world nation. Just keep reciting your mantras of less regulation and smaller government, they will keep you warm when the wolf finally comes to your home……
Considering neither of them is working for a living currently, I'd say a $60,000 income is pretty good.
Now I'm 40 years old and still have no children because I'm still searching for the economic stability that seems necessary to support them. Perhaps I'll get there by 50? Maybe 55? It's a good thing I married a younger woman. Reaching economic security before menopause is starting to look like a monumental challenge.
I'm glad I could be of service to him in his hour of need (2012).
Sure you are...
Guess Obama is on the right track.
Since 50% of Americans are poor under the current system,i would say its not working.
That wasn't the case before 1960. It took Medicare and the great society programs to drag down previously hard-working people and make them dependent on government. And government will NEVER be able to give them enough to satisfy them.
And, I am an independent. Normally, I'll vote for the person I feel will shrink government, which is not necessarily always a republican. But, Obama sure as hell isn't going to shrink anything even remotely connected to the federal government.
Nope, his time around I would vote for a box of Frosted Flakes before I'll vote for Obama. Kim Kardashian could run against him and I'd vote for her.
I didn't take them for myself. I put those funds where they belong...in the hands of someone with the means to shrink government. Your argument is puerile.
> always with the handout cheating the system but never wanting to pay their fair share.
Ah yes, the broken record phrase "fair share." And, who pray tell decides what is "fair?" You?
Tyranny and pestilence always ride into a country on a horse called "fairness."
This is rich. I love how I constantly hear from the left that we need cradle-to-grave government entitlements like the ones provided by the Swedish government. But, every single Swedish citizen pays close to 60% income tax. As if the US could ever have a soft socialist society like that with people who not only pay no taxes, but get money back.
I'm not saying we should leave the destitute out in the cold. I'm saying the US needs to crack down on abuse of the safety net and the left needs to get off the Sweden and Denmark kick. It's never going to happen here. Big difference between a country of 300+ million diverse people and two countries of around 5 million blonde people.
Not true.
If you factor in the costs of health care,Dental care, ,private pension retirement, day care, Long term care for elderly and other costs shouldered by average Americans,how much do we shell out?
Yes a big difference between a country with a view of society that is based on societal needs.and one based on corrupt capitalist lies.
Guess which the USa is?
Your views on USa diversity betrays a certain slant also.
[Laugh] There aren't enough rich people in the world to compare with the number of welfare cases leeching off the system. The OMB has officially stated that it could confiscate every dollar that the top two percent of earners make in a year (100% of their earnings), and it could only run the US government for 15-20 days. That's hardly enough rich people to do what you're claiming they do.
Eliminate those for a start.
http://sanders.senate.gov/petition/?uid=f1c2660f-54b9-4193-86a4-ec2c39342c6c
Sorry could not hyperlink but once you sign pass it along.
F&F
There's insufficient background on the Barrett's situation to adequately assess the extent to which they're partially culpable in their plight. But it clearly demonstrates the importance of being financially prepared for unforeseen disasters, something that many Americans had lost sight of during the two decades before 2008. Just as in the Great Depression, yet another generation is now learning the virtues of frugality, preparedness, savings, flexibility and deferred gratification. If there's any positive coming out of these hard times, that's it.
seems that all of the smug republican tr0ls only stay smug until they are the one getting hit by a car or receiving a pink slip.... I know so many of the self righteous a$$hats who have had come face to face with reality lately.... they were all big talk about how 'other' people deserved what ever misery that came their way because they were not the right color or the right religion or from the right country.
When it happens to them, they think it must be some mistake.... it must be someone else's fault... it could not be their fault... they were living right and had the right degree and going to the right church and voting republican..... poor pitiful things never learn.
to help as much as we can. The other thing I might mention, is that children do not, and cannot, do what you propose. No child should suffer from their parents' hardships in this country! You can tell a lot about a country by how well they treat their old, their young and their disabled.
how much money went into the
church charity boxes
versus how much went into the
businessmans cash boxes.
Christ's Mass indeed.