Poverty and the Effects on Children

As far back as 1960, Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson had concerns regarding poverty. They realized that this problem would ultimately affect the nation either directly or indirectly. It was then that they began to push for initiatives to help the poor. In 1964 congress approved the Economic Opportunity Act, the beginning of establishing anti-poverty programs. Reform programs have since been put into place in the effort to eliminate the increasing number of poor in this country. Even with the implementation of reform programs, America has an alarming child-poverty rate for any industrialized country, with 13.5 million American children living in poverty.

One such program has been the Welfare Reform program. This program was put into place in 1996 and was said to be “one of the most successful pieces of social legislation in American history”(Koch, 2007). This program was referred to as an anti-poverty program. The welfare reform program required recipients to work in exchange for benefits with a limit of 5years of assistance, rather than paying recipients cash benefits. Since this program has been in effect, there has been an increase in the numbers of poor families in food bank lines and in homeless shelters.

The government officials argue in their defense and claim there has been a significant decline in the child poverty rate and that it has been inching downward since 1993. In 1998 it was reported by the Census Bureau that the poverty level had dropped to 12.7 percent nation wide, and child poverty to 18.9 percent, the lowest level since 1989. The government firmly believes the decline in the child poverty rate is due to the implemented overhaul of the welfare programs among several states.

According to child advocates for the Children Defense Fund, cuts to the social service programs in the way of welfare reform has only assisted the rich in getting richer and the poorest Americans getting poorer with the children suffering the most. Startling statistics show that one in five American children still live in poverty, “twice the adult-poverty rate and four times the child-poverty rate of Western European nations,” according to the article written by Kathy Koch on Child Poverty (2007).

Those who built the welfare reform program also argue that reducing child poverty was not the primary goal. It is stated that “the measure was primarily designed to reduce illegitimacy and welfare dependence” (Koch, 2007). This is clearly a contradiction to the earlier claim crediting the decline in the child poverty level to the successful implementation of the welfare reform program.

“Amid the good news of economic growth, it is troubling that those children who remain poor have slipped somewhat deeper into poverty”(2007), said Kathryn Porter, co-author of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report. “While the robust economy is helping many families, others are being affected adversely by the contraction in some parts of the safety net” (Koch, 2007). We see daily the prosperity in our nation whether it is on the Internet, television, or radio. It is shameful as a country to have a child poverty problem given all the countless resources of wealth we have. Jason Walsh of the Affirmative Options Coalition in St. Paul says of critics, “States have been sitting on unprecedented amounts of unspent federal welfare funds... money originally intended for poor kids [got] transferred into tax cuts for upper-income folks. In my mind, that’s not just bad policy, it’s immoral” (Koch, 2007).

It just makes sense to use the money that is being saved through the implemented programs and the surplus in our nation’s economy for those in need, and help put an end to child poverty in our nation. No more cuts to the state programs that assist the working poor, enough cuts have been made, with little improvement at all. What message does this send to other countries, what does it say about our future as a nation? Children are our future; they will be running this nation one day. This needs to be considered, before it is too late.

Bibliography
Koch, K. (2000, April 7). Child poverty. CQ Researcher, 10, 281-304. Retrieved May 29, 2007, from CQ Researcher Online, http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2000040700.