With 11 million in need, lawmakers eye coronavirus aid as means to act
In this Dec 7, 2020, file photo, students enter P.S. 134 Henrietta Szold Elementary School in New York. (MARK LENNIHAN, FILE / AP)
The United States has one of the highest poverty rates for children among the world's wealthiest nations, and now US lawmakers are looking to help the estimated nearly 11 million youngsters in need.
A US$1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package proposed by the administration of President Joe Biden would give US$3,600 a year for children under 6, and US$3,000 for children between 6 and 17
"The escalation of hardship and uncertainty during the pandemic has renewed the focus on making sure that low-income families with children, in particular, have the resources they need to put food on the table for their children," said Zachary Parolin, an assistant professor at Bocconi University in Italy and a senior researcher at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University.
In the US, roughly one in seven children are poor. The child poverty rate of 16 percent is nearly 1.5 times higher than that for adults aged up to 64 (11 percent) and two times higher than for older people (10 percent).
Children are considered poor if they live in a family with an annual income below the federal poverty line of US$25,701 for a family of four, which amounts to less than US$2,142 a month. So, child poverty is often related to a lack of food, healthcare and education.
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Three in 20 of those aged under 18 still lived below the poverty line at the end of last year, according to the center. The share rises to more than one in five for black and Hispanic children, which is more than double the rate for white children in the US.
Black, Native American, Hispanic and Asian children are disproportionately represented among those living in poverty, according to the Children's Defense Fund. More than 25 percent of black children were poor in 35 states and the District of Columbia in 2018; with the same percentage for Hispanic children being poor in 29 states; for American Indian/Native Alaska children, the number of states was 20.
Studies have shown that child poverty causes many social problems. Poor children are more likely to not do well in school and drop out later, becoming unemployed and experiencing economic hardship. Expenses associated with raising children are one of the many reasons that families fall into poverty, and the US lacks an adequate social safety net to fully shield children from family instability, observers say.
Mark Rank, a professor of social welfare at Washington University in St. Louis, said he has estimated that for every dollar spent on reducing childhood poverty, the country would save anywhere between US$7 and US$12 in future expenditures because child poverty is associated with higher healthcare costs, lower economic productivity and higher criminal justice costs.
"In 2015, childhood poverty cost the United States slightly over US$1 trillion, which represented 28 percent of the entire federal budget," Rank said. "By reducing child poverty in the present, we save an enormous amount of tax dollars in the future. Reducing poverty among children is not only the right thing to do, it's also the smart thing to do."
Decadeslong campaign
Reducing child poverty in the US has been a decadeslong campaign by anti-poverty groups and some lawmakers. While Congress has passed several tax credits in recent decades－including a child tax credit created by the 2017 Republican tax overhaul－to help the poor, many don't reach children whose parents are out of work. This includes wide swathes of the black and Hispanic children living in poverty.
Anti-poverty legislation also has encountered opposition from conservative groups who say spending money not conditioned on earning income outside the home acts as a "disincentive to work".
Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said of the plans being proposed: "They're clearly using this COVID situation to try and permanently change the welfare state and permanently enlarge it."
He said that needy families already have access to extensive anti-poverty programs.
A US$1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package proposed by the administration of President Joe Biden would give US$3,600 a year for children under 6, and US$3,000 for children between 6 and 17. It would increase the Child Tax Credit that now provides US$2,000 annually for children under 17.
According to Columbia's Center of Poverty and Social Policy, Biden's relief plan could reduce the child poverty rate to 9.3 percent. Among those under 18, the deep poverty rate would be cut in half, from 4.6 percent to 2.3 percent.
"The Biden plan would likely mark the most significant step in the fight against child poverty since LBJ's (President Lyndon Baines Johnson's) Great Society," said Daniel Hemel, a law professor at the University of Chicago, who noted that a family with two school-age children and no income would get US$6,000 under the proposal.
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While the Democrats' version would be tied to income, Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah proposed giving US$4,200 a year for every child up to the age of 6, as well as US$3,000 a year for every child aged 6 to 17.
Romney's proposal would establish monthly payments up to US$350 per child, larger than the temporary ones in Biden's proposal.
To avoid adding to the deficit, Romney's plan would eliminate or streamline other safety net programs and drop the deduction for state and local taxes. It is estimated that the plan would cut the child-poverty rate by a third.
Agencies contributed to this story.
