For young blacks, a recession would be an improvement

"Joblessness for 16-to-24-year-old black men has reached Great Depression proportions -- 34.5 percent in October, more than three times the rate for the general U.S. population," according to the Washington Post. The numbers for young black women are awful too.

Watch video, read documents from the 11/19 meeting of the Speaker's task force

The Speaker's Task Force on Children in the Recession held its third meeting on Thursday, November 19, 2009, at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford. It took testimony from state and national experts on the following topics:

• The State of Working Connecticut
• Unemployment and Welfare in a Recession
• The American Dream and Hopes for College
• Youth: Gaps and Opportunities

Watch CT-N coverage of the meeting and read meeting documents

NOTE: The Task Force, as part of its plan to hear testimony from residents of each of Connecticut's five congressional districts, will hold a hearing for the 1st District at 10 a.m. on Saturday, December 5, at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford. Directions

The 1st District, represented in Congress by John B. Larson, includes these communities: Barkhamsted, Berlin, Bloomfield, Bristol, Colebrook , Cromwell, East Granby, East Hartford, East Windsor, Glastonbury, Granby, Hartford, Hartland, Manchester, Middletown, New Hartford, Newington, Portland, Rocky Hill, Southington, South Windsor, Torrington, West Hartford, Wethersfield, Winchester, Windsor, and Windsor Locks.

Children in the Recession Task Force meets Thursday, November 19

The legislative task force formed by House Speaker Christopher G. Donovan to address the needs of Connecticut children and families impacted by the recession will meet at 10 a.m., Thursday, November 19, in Room 2-E of the Legislative Office Building in Hartford. Agenda (PDF) | Task force home page

Nearly half of all U.S. children will use food stamps, study finds

A new study finds that 49 percent of all U.S. children will, at some point during their childhoods, live in households that use food stamps.

The study, co-authored by professors Mark R. Rank of Washington University in St. Louis and Thomas Hirschl of Cornell University, is based on an analysis of 30 years of information taken from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and looks at children between the ages of 1 and 20. The PSID is a longitudinal survey of a representative sample of U.S. individuals and their families interviewed annually since 1968.

The study's findings are consistent with a wider body of research demonstrating that U.S. children face considerable economic risk throughout their childhood years, according to Rank.

"Rather than being a time of security and safety, the childhood years for many American children are a time of economic turmoil, risk, and hardship," he says in a Washington University press release.

The study also found that:

-- 90 percent of black children will be in households that uses food stamps. This compares to 37 percent of white children.

-- Nearly one-quarter of all American children will be in households that use food stamps for five or more years during childhood.

-- 91 percent of children with single parents will be in households receiving food stamps, compared to 37 percent of children in households head by married couples.

-- Children who are black and whose head of household is not married and has less than 12 years of education have a cumulative percentage of residing in a food stamp household of 97 percent by age 10.

"Understanding the degree to which American children are exposed to the risks of poverty and food insecurity across childhood is essential information for the health care and social service communities," Rank says. "Even limited exposure to poverty can have detrimental effects upon a child's overall quality of health and well-being."

The study, "Estimating the Risk of Food Stamp Use and Impoverishment During Childhood," is published in the current issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

View video of a University of Washington interview with Dr. Rank here.

Great Recession vs. Great Depression: We regard kids differently

Or so thinks New York Times blogger Judith Warner. And from her viewpoint, today's kids don't fare well in the comparison: "Overall, the Depression-era consensus regarding care for children and families appears to be shattered, or at best, deeply fragmented."

She quotes historian Steven Mintz as saying: "We seem to care little about what it means to a child to lose a home or have stressed-out parents. The difference between then and now is striking."

"Is it an overstatement," Warner asks, "to say that we’re at risk of losing a generation of children if we don’t step up to the plate to provide additional support for families under duress? We are, at the very least, at risk of helping erode children’s most basic sense of security and safety, as well as their hopes for the future. Families are keenly under pressure. We ignore them at our collective peril."

Another product of the recession: more runaways

The New York Times has published a long, disturbing look at the growing number of runaway children in the U.S. It's a trend driven at least in part by the recession, according to the Times:

"Over the past two years, government officials and experts have seen an increasing number of children leave home for life on the streets, including many under 13. Foreclosures, layoffs, rising food and fuel prices and inadequate supplies of low-cost housing have stretched families to the extreme, and those pressures have trickled down to teenagers and preteens."

The Times says this article is the first in a two-part series.

One-third of nonprofits worried about closing

When times are tough, families often turn to nonprofit agencies for help. But up to one-third of the nonprofits in the Hartford region say the recession is putting such a squeeze on them that they worry it will force them to shut their doors in the coming year.

In a survey by the United Way of Central and Northeastern Connecticut, one in three executives for nonprofits operating in the chapter's 40-town service area said they were either “concerned” or “very concerned” that they might close in the coming year, according to the Hartford Business Journal.

As the Journal puts it, the recession has dealt nonprofits "a double whammy": Demand for their services has soared, but funding from corporations, the government, and individuals is down. Two out of three survey respondents said their agencies will be affected by government budget cuts next year.

Jarmoc on children and the recession in HBJ

The Hartford Business Journal has published an op-ed article by Representative Karen Jarmoc of Enfield on the recession's effects on Connecticut children and on the Children in the Recession Task Force, which she co-chairs.

"We cannot turn back the realities thrust upon so many Connecticut families by the collapse of our economy," she writes. "What we can do is take action and work to turn the tide to decrease the number of children and families who fall into a lifetime of poverty."

Read the article on the HBJ website or download a PDF copy.

Recession prompts Congress to bump nutrition spending

Nutrition spending by the federal government, including spending on food stamps and school lunch programs, would rise by $6.6 billion under a bill approved Wednesday by the U.S. House of Representatives.

The increase, for the fiscal year that began October 1, reflects the impact of the recession, according to the Reuters news agency.

Reuters reports that of the $82.8 billion in nutrition spending contained in the bill, child nutrition programs would get $16.9 billion, an increase of $1.9 billion from fiscal 2009. The Women, Infants and Children (WIC) food program would get $7.25 billion, up $398 million.

The bill moves on to the Senate.

Children in the Recession Task Force holds first meeting

The Speaker's task force met for the first time on Tuesday, and there's lots of material from it. You'll find it on the Commission on Children's website, at www.cga.ct.gov/COC/taskforce_092909.htm. We'll be adding to it for the next few days, so check back!

Children in the Recession Task Force to meet Tuesday

The legislative task force formed by House Speaker Christopher G. Donovan to address the needs of children affected by the recession will meet at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, September 29, in Room 2-C of the Legislative Office Building in Hartford. The Connecticut Network plans to cover it; check the CT-N website for program times.

Meeting agenda

More on the task force

Another recession casualty: college savings

Parents of high school children say the past year has seen a significant drop in how much of their kids' college education costs they can cover.

The findings come in Fidelity Investments' third-annual College Savings Indicator study.

Fidelity says it found that parents can cover only 11 percent of the total cost of their children’s college education. That's down from 15 percent in 2008. This is a concern, Fidelity notes, because the cost of a college education continues to rise at 5.8 percent a year, totaling an estimated $124,400 for today’s high school seniors.

On the bright side: This year’s study found that more parents of college-bound children, aged 18 and younger, have started saving and are better utilizing tax-advantaged savings accounts such as 529 plans. Still, the "challenging economic environment of the past year" has impacted overall savings levels, Fidelity reports.

Alarming numbers from the Brookings Institution

The Brookings Institution, using data from the Congressional Budget Office, estimates that poverty in the U.S. will worsen through 2011 or 2012, with children really taking it on the chin:

"There were 37 million people in poverty in 2007, so our results indicate that the recession would increase the number of people in poverty by about 8 million, or 22 percent. Our estimates for the increase in poverty amongst children are even more dramatic. There were about 13 million children living in poverty in 2007, and we estimate that the number of poor children could increase by at least 5 million, or 38 percent." (Emphasis added.)

Download the entire 11-page report here.

Recovery likely to be 'weak and fragile'

The unemployment rate jumped to 9.7 percent in August, "amplifying worries that millions of households are likely to endure financial anxiety and lean times for months to come," the New York Times reported today.

The Times added that while most economists believe the United States has escaped the grip of recession "as a technical matter," the federal government's new jobless figures "lent credence to a growing consensus that the recovery is likely to be weak and fragile, prompting most companies to hold back from hiring aggressively."

When children go homeless, we all pay a price

From "Facts on Trauma and Homeless Children," a 2005 report authored by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network and funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the US Department of Health and Human Services:

• Homeless children are sick at twice the rate of other children. They suffer twice as many ear infections, have four times the rate of asthma, and have five times more diarrhea and stomach problems.
• Homeless children go hungry twice as often as non-homeless children.
• More than one-fifth of homeless preschoolers have emotional problems serious enough to require professional care, but less than one-third receive any treatment.
• Homeless children are twice as likely to repeat a grade compared to non-homeless children.
• Homeless children have twice the rate of learning disabilities and three times the rate of emotional and behavioral problems of non-homeless children.
• Half of school-age homeless children experience anxiety, depression, or withdrawal compared to 18 percent of non-homeless children.
• By the time homeless children are eight years old, one in three has a major mental disorder.

Download the full six-page report here. (PDF)

School systems expect more demand for free or reduced-price lunches

School systems in eastern Connecticut expect an increase in the number of students receiving free or reduced-price lunches under federal programs this year, according to the Norwich Bulletin, which adds that the schools saw an increase last year as well.

For instance, Putnam saw the percentage of students using lunch programs rise from 45 percent in October 2007 to 56 percent in June 2008. "With the economy the way it is, I’m expecting it will grow even more," Virginia Smelser, food service director for Putnam schools, told the Bulletin.

Children from families with incomes less than 130 percent of the poverty level qualify for free meals, while children from families with incomes between 130 percent and 185 percent of the poverty level qualify for reduced-price meals, under just-released federal guidelines.

'Sesame Street' takes on the recession

Elmo has a new message for you and your family: You're not alone these days in having to deal with job loss and tighter finances.

Sesame Workshop, the production company behind "Sesame Street," has produced a PBS prime-time special on how families can deal with the recession.

Called "Families Stand Together: Feeling Secure in Tough Times," it will provide simple strategies and tips on how to maintain small children's physical and emotional well-being in these times.

The hosts -- in addition to Elmo, who must cope with his mom's job loss -- are Al Roker and Deborah Roberts. They're joined by financial expert Jean Chatzky and parenting and relationship expert Dr. Joshua Coleman.

PBS has scheduled the program to air at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, September 9, but check your local listings.

In announcing the program, Sesame Workshop said it will "extend the initiative by providing additional resources online, in print, and into local communities," in part by working with PBS stations in 32 key markets to promote community screenings and to deliver 200,000 bilingual educational outreach kits nationwide.

Resources and materials will be available online at www.sesameworkshop.org/toughtimes beginning September 9, "so that families everywhere can view the videos and download the information," Sesame Workshop added.

Here's a positive review of the program from DailyFinance.

Child dental care another casualty of the recession

CBS reports that some 12 million children face serious barriers to dental care, involving either high cost or lack of dental insurance. For families struggling just to put food on the table and pay their mortgages, "a trip to the dentist is often the first thing to go" from their budgets, according to CBS.

The recession is rough on single moms—and their kids

Nationally, at least 121,000 children have lost health insurance coverage as a result of single mothers losing their jobs in the recession, according to Congress' Joint Economic Committee.

The number of unemployed female heads of household has increased 53 percent over the past twelve months, the Committee says in a new report, "Comprehensive Health Insurance Reform: An Essential Prescription for Women," adding: "For many of these women, the loss of a job means not only a disappearing paycheck, but also the disappearance of employer-sponsored health insurance coverage for their families."

Stimulus money = Summer youth jobs in Norwich

In the Norwich area, the Summer Youth Employment Program uses federal stimulus money to give youth from low-income families an opportunity earn money and learn some job skills, according to the Norwich Bulletin. The program provides up to six weeks of summer employment for 124 students at 57 sites in Norwich, Colchester, Griswold, and Sprague. They make the minimum wage of $8 per hour for up to 25 hours per week and up to six weeks.