- Study: More Minnesota children in poverty; worst in northwest, By Ryan Johnson, May 31, 2012, Pioneer Press: “After a long streak of boasting one of the nation’s lowest rates of children living in poverty, Minnesota has been ‘slipping’ in recent years compared with the rest of the nation, said research director Kara Arzamendia with the Children’s Defense Fund. About 9 percent of the state’s children lived in poverty in 2000, but the number shot up to 15 percent by 2010, the latest data available. That year, about 192,000 of the state’s under-18 population lived in households with incomes less than $22,314 for a family of four. ‘Things have been going in the wrong direction,’ Arzamendia said. That was one of the findings in the latest Kids Count report released Wednesday, May 30. For more than two decades, the Annie E. Casey Foundation has released the state-by-state data book that tracks several factors in children’s health and well-being and aims to raise awareness of the issues now facing children across the nation…”
- More Minn. children living in poverty, By Conrad Wilson, May 31, 2012, Minnesota Public Radio: “Audrey Thayer works with children and families in northern Minnesota who live on the edge of poverty. Many have income that falls below federal poverty guidelines. As a result, there is a constant demand for services. ‘We’ll get one family up and running, and another family arrives,’ said Thayer, coordinator of the Minnesota Greater Racial Justice Project. ‘Same situation.’ ‘It’s almost like a revolving door,’ Thayer said of the Bemidji-based advocacy group’s work. ‘Behind that door, there’s tons out there. We don’t know. We never know how many are going to come through that door, but they do. And in eight years, I have never seen that subside.’ A new report by the Children’s Defense Fund-Minnesota shows more children are living in poverty. In 2000, roughly 110,000 children statewide lived at or below the poverty line. In 2010, that number was up to nearly 200,000…”
Month: May 2012
Medicaid Experiment – Oregon
Oregon’s Medicaid experiment represents a ‘defining moment’, By Kristian Foden-Vencil, May 30, 2012, National Public Radio: “The things that Amy Vance does for James Prasad are pretty simple: She calls doctors with him, organizes his meds, and helps him keep tabs on his blood pressure, blood sugar and weight. These simple things – and the relationship between a health coach like Vance and a chronically ill Medicaid patient like Prasad – are a big part of a $2 billion health care experiment in Oregon. Gov. John Kitzhaber, a Democrat and a former emergency room doctor, has convinced the federal government that he has a way to make Medicaid treatment better, and cheaper, by completely changing the way the sickest people in Oregon get health care…”
UNICEF Report on Child Poverty
- Child poverty in UK set to increase as result of austerity drive, says Unicef, By Amelia Gentleman, May 29, 2012, The Guardian: “The government’s austerity drive is set to reverse the strides made in reducing child poverty in the UK, research published by Unicef on Tuesday suggests. The study indicates that during the early years of the recession, the UK was more successful than other rich countries in reducing child poverty and protecting children from deprivation, but warns that spending cuts will swiftly undermine this progress…”
- US has second-highest rate of childhood poverty in developed world, only Romania is worse, By Ashley Portero, May 30, 2012, International Business Times: “The United States has the second-highest rate of childhood poverty in the developed world, according to a new report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which concluded that nations with comprehensive government programs designed to protect vulnerable children had the lowest rates of child poverty and deprivation. Out of the 35 wealthiest countries analyzed by UNICEF, only one, Romania, had a child poverty rate above the 23 percent rate recorded in the U.S. The rate is based on the definition of relative poverty used by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which states a child is living in poverty if he or she is growing up in a household where disposable income, when adjusted for family size and compensation, is less than 50 percent of the median disposable income for the country in question…”
- Canada lags on fighting child poverty, report finds, By Laurie Monsebraaten, May 29, 2012, Toronto Star: “Canada falls below most of its international peers when it comes to fighting child poverty, says a new report by the United Nations Children’s Fund being released Tuesday. With a child poverty rate of 13.3 per cent, Canada ranks 24th out of 35 industrialized nations, behind the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and most of northern Europe, says the UNICEF report. Overall, the Netherlands and Nordic countries have the lowest rates of child poverty, hovering at about 7 per cent, almost half Canada’s rate. Meantime, the United States and some of the southern European countries have the highest. (Iceland has the lowest child poverty rate at 4.7 per cent and Romania has the highest at 25.5 per cent. The U.S. rate is 23 per cent.) When it comes to the size of the gap between child poverty and a nation’s overall poverty rate, Canada fares somewhat better at 18 out of 35, the report notes…”