Children in poverty

[Trajan]

How can anyone see this and not worry about what things are coming down to in America today.

Hunger & Poverty In America - YouTube

a. Forty-three percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

b. Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

c. Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.

d. The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)

e. Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars.

f. Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.

g. Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.

h. Eighty-nine percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.

i. As a group, America's poor are far from being chronically undernourished. The average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle-class children and, in most cases, is well above recommended norms. Poor children actually consume more meat than do higher-income children and have average protein intakes 100 percent above recommended levels. Most poor children today are, in fact, supernourished and grow up to be, on average, one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II.How Poor Are America's Poor? Examining the "Plague" of Poverty in America


I used to be surprised at how gullible folks like you were...then I saw that Barack Obama had been elected.

What you are describing is the working poor. I know a family that meets your description to the tee. The family consist of three kids and a single parent, no dad. They have a car that runs about as often as it doesn't run. The mother works two days a week as a maid and is waitress on the weekend. She get's food stamps and welfare payments for the kids, Medicaid, and no child support.

They have a microwave and an a color TV. Both purchased at a thrift store for about $10 each. They own their house because it was left to them by a parent. I'm familiar with this family because our church helped them out when the dad took off.

This is the new middle class.

I don't accept that description as accurate, I will play devils advocate though and ask then; how did it come to this, or DID it come to this? these people may have existed for , well a century.....or more...

 

[Tank]

Not all students get free meals, only those that meet family income requirements.

All Detroit Public School Students to Get Free Breakfast, Lunch, Snacks

 

[BDBoop]

The reason we have programs for the poor is not too keep our streets free of victims of starvation. That's not going to happen. You can survive on one meal a day. However, people that are hungry and constantly worried about where the next meal is coming from don't do a good job of parenting, interviewing for jobs, or much of anything else. Kids that go to school hungry don't learn. When you're hungry, it's difficult to concentrate on anything but food. Feeding the poor benefits all society, not just the poor.

There's no such thing as hungry kids in school now. Breakfast and lunch are served at school, and they are for everybody. Often the kids are hungry at home, later, but that's just discomfort, not starvation.

Of course there is. Most schools participate but not all. Not all students get free meals, only those that meet family income requirements. For students that pay, if the parent doesn't give the student lunch money or deposit money in the child's account he doesn't eat unless the child calls this to the attention of the school which is not that likely.

My daughter teaches in a very poor school where almost all students are on free or reduced lunches and breakfast. She tells me one of the big problems is kids arrive late after breakfast is served because parents, friends, are neighbors drop the kids off late. These are kids that need the free breakfast the most are the ones that don't get it.

More than 50 million Americans live in households that are classified as food insecure which means that at times during the year, meals are reduced in size or eliminated due to a lack money. When I was a kid, there were a lot of times when dinner was a peanut butter sandwich, a butter sugar sandwich, or a ketchup sandwich and breakfast was a donut. It's not that your starving, you just don't have any energy and about the only thing you're interested in is eating.

I can't imagine being in those shoes as a teenager. My nephew - we used to go to Old Country Buffet and just let him graze. I'd joke that he was filling his hollow leg. If the adults sat around chatting too long, he'd start again.

 

[Flopper]

Not all students get free meals, only those that meet family income requirements.

All Detroit Public School Students to Get Free Breakfast, Lunch, Snacks

True but it depends on the district. In Detroit, a pilot program was introduced to provide all children free and reduced lunch and breakfast to avoid the stigma of free food. If you haven't worked with one of these programs, you probably don't realize the huge stigma in the mind of kids when they are singled out as needing free food. Kids would often rather go hungry than admit that they can't afford to buy their lunch like other kids. However, I suspect in most of Detroit, most kids get free and reduced lunch.

 

[Flopper]

The cost of the school free and reduced lunch and breakfast program for the nation is 9.8 billion dollars a year which is a bargain considering the results. We spend about 7 billion a month in Afghanistan, and IMHO accomplish a lot less. None the less, there are many from right would like to see the program abolished.

 

[koshergrl]

a. Forty-three percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

b. Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

c. Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.

d. The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)

e. Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars.

f. Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.

g. Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.

h. Eighty-nine percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.

i. As a group, America's poor are far from being chronically undernourished. The average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle-class children and, in most cases, is well above recommended norms. Poor children actually consume more meat than do higher-income children and have average protein intakes 100 percent above recommended levels. Most poor children today are, in fact, supernourished and grow up to be, on average, one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II.How Poor Are America's Poor? Examining the "Plague" of Poverty in America


I used to be surprised at how gullible folks like you were...then I saw that Barack Obama had been elected.

What you are describing is the working poor. I know a family that meets your description to the tee. The family consist of three kids and a single parent, no dad. They have a car that runs about as often as it doesn't run. The mother works two days a week as a maid and is waitress on the weekend. She get's food stamps and welfare payments for the kids, Medicaid, and no child support.

They have a microwave and an a color TV. Both purchased at a thrift store for about $10 each. They own their house because it was left to them by a parent. I'm familiar with this family because our church helped them out when the dad took off.

This is the new middle class.

I don't accept that description as accurate, I will play devils advocate though and ask then; how did it come to this, or DID it come to this? these people may have existed for , well a century.....or more...

Middle class by definition has to be quite some ways above the poverty line. Somebody who has foodstamps and medicaid is not above the poverty line, and so isn't middle class, but in this case working poor.

 

[koshergrl]

The working poor today are comparable to the people in the poor houses at the turn of the 19-20th century...they work, but for whatever reason, they are never able to pay their bills, accumulate wealth, or live without charity.

 

[Tank]

Not all students get free meals, only those that meet family income requirements.

All Detroit Public School Students to Get Free Breakfast, Lunch, Snacks

True but it depends on the district. In Detroit, a pilot program was introduced to provide all children free and reduced lunch and breakfast to avoid the stigma of free food. If you haven't worked with one of these programs, you probably don't realize the huge stigma in the mind of kids when they are singled out as needing free food. Kids would often rather go hungry than admit that they can't afford to buy their lunch like other kids. However, I suspect in most of Detroit, most kids get free and reduced lunch.

Then I guess every child in the nation will be recieving free lunch from now on?

 

[Mr. H.]

The working poor today are comparable to the people in the poor houses at the turn of the 19-20th century...they work, but for whatever reason, they are never able to pay their bills, accumulate wealth, or live without charity.

Not spending is saving. Sometimes you can't spend what you can't have. And when you can't have what you can't spend... well then you're royally fucked.

Nothin' from nothin' leaves... nothin'.

What's so complicated about this?

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_DV54ddNHE]Billy Preston - Nothing from nothing 1975 - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Mr. H.]

Booze posting.

 

[Wicked Jester]

I gotta tell you hon,, these kids look the picture of health, you ever compare them to a hungry kid in Somalia? I know for a fact our society provides for two hot meals per day in school and for food stamps. Now don't you think the parents should so SOMETHING?
ANYTHING?

They are hungry, but not as bad as the kids in Somalia, so that is OK? Amd you are awful familiar and insulting with your 'hon'.

Correct. They're not in Somalia. They shouldn't be going to bed hungry. Their parents shouldn't be deciding between paying electric, and feeding family.

This is America, ffs.

To all who have decided they went hungry, and it wasn't that big a deal - is that how you remember it? Because yeah, I know now that I got through it. But I didn't then. Then, it hurt. Going to bed hungry hurt, just like they said. When the man who married my mother found us, we were suffering from malnutrition. He used to take us to Burger King, buy us whoppers, ask us if we got enough to eat.

My mom used to claim that she either wasn't hungry or already ate, so there'd be enough food for my sister and I.

I'm talking 50 years ago. Fifty years, and I still remember going without.

What about your kids? Would you be okay with your kids going hungry? Living under somebody else's roof, or a family of five living in a rough neighborhood in a motel, or even in the van? Why the FUCK is that okay with you??

I don't understand you people. I truly don't. Take a stand, and don't budge, no matter how inhumane it makes you look.

Yeah, and it's really humane for some bimbo to have 5 kids with no idea who the daddy's are.

Thanks to you lib's, and your glorifying of all things entitlement, the following is rampant in this great country:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcxddclY71Q]Are You My Daddy??? - YouTube[/ame]

 

[NYcarbineer]

[2. So, what did that spending buy? The poverty rate in 1950 was 32%; 22.4% in 1959; 12.1% in 1969. Progress against poverty then abruptly stopped.

a. The poverty rate bounced around, went up to 15% in 1982, but never fell below the 1969 level again (except for a brief spell 1999-2001). In 2009 it was 14.3%...after the expenditure of $16 trillion.

1970 to the present also represents the era of the mass exodus of good paying American jobs to low wage countries,

a process that every true 'free market' conservative holds in the highest regard.

That phenomenon, and those on the right who zealously support it, was and is the war on poverty's single biggest enemy.

 

[Lovebears65]

As someone who grew up in poverty, I suggest people replace their occasional emotional reactions with a cold hard FEARLESS look at the actual causes of poverty.

I grew up poor. We had 6 kids in a 2 bedroom house. No hot water and a toilet that did not flush. I never once growing up think of us as poor. We had a roof over our head. Food in our belly and two parents that loved us. When you compared to what we had and the kids in Africa we had it good. We in America is all about entitlements . What we can get for free . I believe if you work hard you will get what you need and more.

 

[editec]

The number one cause of POVERTY in the USA is having parents* who are poor.

The number two cause of poverty in the USA is not having enough** money.

* The majority of people in poverty are children

** "It takes money to make money"...that why we call it CAPITALism, kids

 

[koshergrl]

[2. So, what did that spending buy? The poverty rate in 1950 was 32%; 22.4% in 1959; 12.1% in 1969. Progress against poverty then abruptly stopped.

a. The poverty rate bounced around, went up to 15% in 1982, but never fell below the 1969 level again (except for a brief spell 1999-2001). In 2009 it was 14.3%...after the expenditure of $16 trillion.

1970 to the present also represents the era of the mass exodus of good paying American jobs to low wage countries,

a process that every true 'free market' conservative holds in the highest regard.

That phenomenon, and those on the right who zealously support it, was and is the war on poverty's single biggest enemy.

How ridiculous. That exodus took place as a direct result of the shutdown of industry in this country, and the advent of "minimum wage". Both things that conservatives protested mightily.

Enjoy.

 

[koshergrl]

The working poor today are comparable to the people in the poor houses at the turn of the 19-20th century...they work, but for whatever reason, they are never able to pay their bills, accumulate wealth, or live without charity.

Not spending is saving. Sometimes you can't spend what you can't have. And when you can't have what you can't spend... well then you're royally fucked.

Nothin' from nothin' leaves... nothin'.

What's so complicated about this?

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_DV54ddNHE]Billy Preston - Nothing from nothing 1975 - YouTube[/ame]

Okaaay...thank you for posting complete nonsense. You can never have to much gibberish!

 

[editec]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEQDllvuy1I]Oliver! - Food, Glorious Food - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Trajan]

The cost of the school free and reduced lunch and breakfast program for the nation is 9.8 billion dollars a year which is a bargain considering the results. We spend about 7 billion a month in Afghanistan, and IMHO accomplish a lot less. None the less, there are many from right would like to see the program abolished.

a bargain? and you forget to add the 4.5 billion over 4 years from michelle obamas prgm.


if this is a 'bargain' why are the indicators going in the opposite direction? I have posted it before, are you aware of the child hood obesity rate 40 years ago, and now? after the 9.8 billion a year which of course has been ratcheted up as those the number has creeped higher every year?

is your feeling really that since we spend money on iraq and afghan we should just throw away any benchmarks for effective spending and an effective prgm.?

 

[Trajan]

[2. So, what did that spending buy? The poverty rate in 1950 was 32%; 22.4% in 1959; 12.1% in 1969. Progress against poverty then abruptly stopped.

a. The poverty rate bounced around, went up to 15% in 1982, but never fell below the 1969 level again (except for a brief spell 1999-2001). In 2009 it was 14.3%...after the expenditure of $16 trillion.

1970 to the present also represents the era of the mass exodus of good paying American jobs to low wage countries,

a process that every true 'free market' conservative holds in the highest regard.

That phenomenon, and those on the right who zealously support it, was and is the war on poverty's single biggest enemy.

 

[Flopper]

The cost of the school free and reduced lunch and breakfast program for the nation is 9.8 billion dollars a year which is a bargain considering the results. We spend about 7 billion a month in Afghanistan, and IMHO accomplish a lot less. None the less, there are many from right would like to see the program abolished.

a bargain? and you forget to add the 4.5 billion over 4 years from michelle obamas prgm.


if this is a 'bargain' why are the indicators going in the opposite direction? I have posted it before, are you aware of the child hood obesity rate 40 years ago, and now? after the 9.8 billion a year which of course has been ratcheted up as those the number has creeped higher every year?

is your feeling really that since we spend money on iraq and afghan we should just throw away any benchmarks for effective spending and an effective prgm.?

I know little of Michelle Obama's childhood obesity program and I'm not that interested. However, I am interest in seeing that kids are adequately fed before attending class. From first hand experience, I can tell you hungry kids don't learn and create class disturbances. It's a waste of money trying to educate them. We spend from about $50 to $100 a day to educate a child. Spending a little over $2 a day to provide a meal to a low income kid is a bargain. We don't need free lunch programs but we need free lunches for kids that can't afford it, otherwise we just as well shut down schools in impoverished areas because the kids aren't going to learn a damn thing.