Report: Poverty negatively affects 20% of N.C. children, Asheville Citizen-Times (10.27.2011)
A report being released today estimates childhood poverty costs North Carolinians $15.4 billion a year in reduced productivity and increased crime and health care costs.
In its report, “Child Poverty in North Carolina: A Preventable Epidemic,” the advocacy group Action for Children NC looks at the long-term effects of poverty on the economy and on children’s cognitive abilities and physical and emotional health. The report calls on state legislators and policymakers to support families with living wage requirements, quality child care for more children and access to tax credits and health care. “If one in five children suffered from a single, debilitating, life-limiting affliction, citizens would demand research into the cause, treatment for the symptoms and a cure for the ailment,” the report says. “The same attention must be paid to the poverty that is negatively affecting 20 percent of North Carolina’s children.” Dr. Olson Huff, former medical director for children’s health services at Mission Hospitals and current pediatric consultant to the Mission Healthcare Foundation, believes child poverty has become so pervasive that people don’t even notice it anymore. “There’s this ‘the poor will always be with us’ attitude, and that’s simply unacceptable,” Huff said. “We’ve known about the early childhood brain research for more than a decade, but we still don’t have quality child care for all children.” That research has shown that children’s brains grow most quickly during infancy and early childhood and that the effects of poverty can cause permanent diminished cognitive ability. Living in poverty also can inhibit children’s social and emotional brain development, and research shows the stress of living in poverty causes higher levels of the hormone cortisol, which increases the risk of health problems. Allison Jordan, director of Children First of Buncombe County, stresses that programs need to reach out to entire families, not just children. “If a parent lacks access to health care, it’s damaging too,” she said. “That’s why we have an advocacy arm … in addition to our other programs.” Children First offers homework clubs for low-income children and partners with the YMCA to get children outdoors during the summer months. “After-school programs keep children safe, help them with schoolwork, provide nutritious snacks, and usually offer some enrichment activities,” Jordan said. A family is considered to be living in poverty if its total annual income is less than the federal poverty level, or $21,200 for a family of four. Research suggests that families need around twice that much to meet their basic needs. Even then, families often lack access to health care, have unstable child care arrangements, miss rent payments, have utilities shut off or run out of food. “The federal poverty line is an outdated, inaccurate measure,” said Sarah Osmer, director of Just Economics, a nonprofit advocacy agency. “The actual cost of living is more than double the poverty level. Costs are rising every day and wages aren’t, so people continue to lose ground.” The effects of child poverty can’t be eradicated overnight, said Barbara Bradley, director of Action for Children NC, but the state can take some immediate actions that would help. “We could index the minimum wage so it goes up with inflation,” she said. “We could mandate paid sick days so people don’t have to miss a day’s pay when they or their children are sick, and we can expand child care subsidies so more children can be in safe settings while their parents work. There’s a start.”