Food stamp usage up 30% in Connecticut this year

But behind that number are some more telling facts. As WFSB-TV's Eyewitness News reports, the new applicants for assistance are increasingly well-educated and coming from smaller towns. The station interviewed Lucy Nolan, executive director of End Hunger Connecticut! and a member of the Speaker's Task Force on Children in the Recession.

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.

Even the 'boom' years were so-so for children

That's what the Annie E. Casey Foundation learned in compiling its 20th-annual Kids Count Data Book, which uses the U.S. Census and other government statistics to measure the well-being of American children.

Here's how the Washington Post summed up the findings: "The well-being of American children changed only modestly during the boom years of this decade and undoubtedly has worsened since the onset of the recession."

The rate of children living in poverty was on the rise even before the recession's official onset in December 2007. Unfortunately, that's also where the data trail ended for the Casey Foundation; with no 2008 and 2009 numbers available from the government yet, its report does not reflect the impact of rising unemployment in recent months.

"Our take-away is that even going into the recession, the economic outlook for a lot of families was dire," Kids Count coordinator Laura Beavers told the Post. "There was a flattening of the median income, and the poverty level was creeping up year after year."

"The poverty rate for children remains between 17 and 19 percent thus far this decade-–the rate of 18 percent in 2007 means 900,000 more children were living in poverty nationally than in 2000," Beavers said in a Kids Count press release.

In addition, she said, the teen birth rate is trending upward after more than a decade of steady decline. Although still below the rate in 2000, the teen birth rate increased from 40 to 42 births per 1,000 females ages 15-19 between 2005 and 2006.

The teen birth rate is one of 10 key indicators the Casey Foundation used for Kids Count. Looking across all of the indicators, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Utah ranked the highest; Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi ranked the lowest.

How did Connecticut do? It was one of five states with the biggest improvement in their rankings between 1999-2000 and 2006-07, the others being New York, Maryland, North Carolina, and Illinois.

Connecticut report

Kids Count Data Center

Annie E. Casey Foundation

U. of Michigan poll: Recession toughest on poor and uninsured kids

New polling data from the University of Michigan Health System shows that as parents face increasingly difficult financial decisions in this recession, it's often their children's health that gets short shrift -- especially in uninsured and lower-income families.

The data, gathered in May as part of the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health, shows 44 percent of families’ financial situations have worsened in the last six months. To make ends meet, many have cut back on extras (65 percent), applied for government health coverage (24 percent), applied for free or reduced-price lunch programs (27 percent), and delayed taking their children to the doctor (11 percent) or dentist (16 percent).

"In particular, we found that if a family’s financial situation had worsened over the last 6 months and their children were uninsured, 40 percent of those parents had delayed taking their children to the doctor," Matthew M. Davis M.D., director of the poll, said. "This is a particularly concerning statistic when we consider that some of these kids whose care is being delayed may be particularly vulnerable or at risk for serious health problems."

In addition, 40 percent of the parents polled indicated their children (aged 5-17) had some or a lot of stress as a result of worries about their family’s finances. Fifty-three percent of parents reported that their teens (aged 13–17) had stress due to the family’s financial situation.

Common symptoms of stress in children include acting out, abdominal pain and headaches.

"We found that stress from financial worries affected families of lower incomes more than families of higher incomes," according to Davis, who is associate professor of pediatrics, internal medicine, and public policy at the University of Michigan Medical School and Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. "So much so that families of the lowest income level--namely making $30,000 per year or less--were more than twice as likely to report their kids had stress as families of the highest income group making $100,000 or more per year."

Get the full report here

Recession putting a crunch on after-school programs

After-school programs across the nation are struggling with both recession-related budget shortfalls and recession-related enrollment increases, according to USA Today. A national survey this spring revealed that three in five programs have seen their funding drop in the past two years. Meanwhile, demand for the programs keeps rising -- in part because of the recession, as laid-off parents seek help in providing for their children.

USA Today notes that after-school programs have captured the attention of President Obama, who said in declaring July 9 National Summer Learning Day that "unequal access" to after-school summer programs helps cause the achievement gap between low-income and affluent students. Read his full statement here.

Two interesting New York Times columns

Columnist Bob Herbert wrote recently that with "so much attention focused on the banking system and arguments over bailouts, the plight of America’s children in this severe economic downturn is getting short shrift."

Dr. Irwin Redlener, president of the Children’s Health Fund in New York, told Herbert that we're seeing the emergence of a "recession generation" -- kids whose families had a reasonable chance at a comfortable living two years but who must now live with the effects of unemployment or underemployment.

Then there's Nicholas D. Kristof's piece on the connection between economic status and I.Q. While poor people have I.Q.’s significantly lower than those of rich people, he says, it's becoming apparent that the conventional wisdom on the reason for it -- genetics -- is wrong. He quotes Richard Nisbett, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, as summing up the new research this way:

"Bad environments suppress children’s I.Q.’s."

Nisbett is the author of a new book, "Intelligence and How to Get It," which not only takes on the genetics argument but also offers advice for addressing poverty and inequality in America.

First-time visitors to the New York Times website are asked to register. It's free.

How should parents explain the recession to children?

This Chicago Tribune article offers some suggestions. Among them: taking the kids with you to the grocery store and making sure they see you using coupons, which will help teach them the value of a dollar.

"Whatever route parents take in navigating the recession," the article says, "experts say children are paying attention. The financial decisions parents make today, the priorities and examples they set, will have an important influence on their children's financial lives, experts say."

Food insecurity rates rising steeply

Food Insecurity occurs when there is limited or uncertain access to enough nutritious food for all household members to lead active and healthy lives. Children's HealthWatch, a Boston-based research organization, reports that food insecurity in a five-city sample of low-income families with children under age 3 has risen from 18.5 percent to 22.6 percent between 2007 and 2008.

Download the full report here (PDF)

Download an executive summary (PDF)

Check out the Summer Food Service Program

The Department of Education’s Summer Food Service Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, provides free meals for children through age 18 (through age 21 for children with disabilities) at sites around the state. There are no income or asset restrictions. All sites are open for lunch, and some offer breakfast. Visit the state Department of Education website and click on "SFSP and Seamless Summer Sponsor Directory" to see a list of meal sites.

Shelters to benefit from heating aid surplus

The Hartford Courant reports that the state government has a surplus in federal heating-aid dollars and will distribute up to $2 million of it to 60 shelters, with another $14 million going to yet-to-be-identified energy-assistance programs.

"News of the surplus offered some respite for shelter directors, who learned about a month ago that their federal block grants, distributed by the state Department of Social Services, were cut by 6 percent," according to the Courant.

Rescuing high school dropouts in Hartford, Manchester

"Hartford and Manchester are among a dozen communities across the country involved in maximizing use of federal stimulus money to get high school dropouts and other 'disconnected' young people into the working world," the Hartford Courant reports.

Youth-service and jobs specialists will be trained on how to use stimulus funds to help young people who've left school, lack jobs and skills, and are in danger of becoming chronic drains on society, according to the Courant. The program, called City Leaders Re-engaging Disconnected Youth through Economic Recovery Efforts, is sponsored by the National League of Cities.

NPR broadcast: "'Beyond Bars' Amid Bad Times"

Here's a summary of the program, aired Monday on National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation":

"More than 600,000 people are released from U.S. prisons every year. But imagine re-entering society in today's economy as a convicted felon. Jeffery Ian Ross and Stephen C. Richards, the authors of the book Beyond Bars, offer insights on a successful reentry into society, the local community and the job market."

Listen to it here

Study finds Connecticut health care costs rising

CT News Junkie reports that Health Care for America Now, a national grassroots organization for health care reform, has released a report showing "the cost of health care is rising across the nation and right here in Connecticut." Read the article

Recession drives up teen dating violence

CBS reports that a study from Liz Claiborne and The Family Violence Prevention Fund shows an increase in teen dating violence -- directly tied to the economic downturn. Read the article

Children in the recession: A legislative task force

On June 16, the Commission on Children hosted a forum where Speaker of the House of Representatives Christopher G. Donovan announced the formation of a legislative task force to address the needs of children affected by the recession. Event documents, video, and photos