HALF of U.S. Kids Will Get Food Stamps
Oh. My. God. In the "richest country in the world". There are no words for how unacceptable this is:
Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood, and fallout from the current recession could push those numbers even higher, researchers say.
The estimate comes from an analysis of 30 years of national data, and it bolsters other recent evidence on the pervasiveness of youngsters at economic risk. It suggests that almost everyone knows a family who has received food stamps, or will in the future, said lead author Mark Rank, a sociologist at Washington University in St. Louis.
"Your neighbor may be using some of these programs but it's not the kind of thing people want to talk about," Rank said.
The analysis was released Monday in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. The authors say it's a medical issue pediatricians need to be aware of because children on food stamps are at risk for malnutrition and other ills linked with poverty.
"This is a real danger sign that we as a society need to do a lot more to protect children," Rank said.
My brother is an elementary school teacher in a mostly minority area, and we've talked about this before. He told me that the school lunch program is often the only meal many children at his school get each day. And we know how healthy those meals are. My brother (and other teachers) have taken to buying fresh fruit out of their own meager salaries to make available to these kids.
The ramifications of this heartbreaking demographic will reverberate over decades: in health statistics, in education levels, in our economy, in crime statistics. And it's a situation for which no one should be complacent.
The US has treated its people like throwaway napkins for a generation...
Now we reap the results...
Sanitary?
I lost mine years ago.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Wonder what percentage of those children are in "republican" voting families?
We can't be worried about children when there is the sacred work of creating greater profits for health insurance corporations, pharmeceutical corporations, banks and investment houses! We need to get our priorities straight here...screw the children! Let them work in coal mines for a dollar a week.
End Scrooge subroutine.
The "news" boys at FOX and the Cheneys worship you.
This article upset me so much, the only reply I could summon was bitter, satirical sarcasm.... hence, the "End Scrooge subroutine" blurb. I am sure, though like you say, that the Fox trogledytes and Cheney types do indeed worship such sentiments.
It troubles me that this really does seem to be the priority of too many "fine, upstanding" conservative and corporatist types. It's pretty much the ultimate indictment of ourselves as a people, that we can always find trillions for fat cat social parasites, trillions more for wars and arms merchants and only food stamps or nothing for the children, where anything for anybody in need is given only begrudgingly or not at all.
It's evil.
necessities for a decent life to all our people? Those who want more can go on and attain more. Too much to ask? Food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education. Not elaborate, just basic. How can we not afford to give these to people?
Grover Norquist must be steaming!
The Beckian tea baggers are ready to rise up in protest!
The Randians are apoplectic!
Government money!! For FOOD?!?! We cannot afford such luxuries as FOOD. There is a war on!!
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
...would be to end the food stamp program.
Tax breaks for businesses who hire children - THAT'LL do it!
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
and condemn the neighbors for not being there to help.
We can't be worried about what happens to them after they are born only before! After they are just more slaves to stoke the fires of the rich.
republicanism/conservatism is a mental illness! It is killing America on person at a time.
Agreed.
If we can't do better by our kids - we fail.
Of course, this might encourage the kids to go out and get a job. That would suit the GOP and "cons" - a return to child labor - that way they can eat.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
We have not done better by our kids. We suck in nearly every social and educational factor compared to other industrialized nations.
90% of black kids will sometime in their life be on food stamps???
WTF - that is an outrage, an epidemic of biblical proportions.
Let's not hurry and do anything about it though. Don't want them gettin' all uppity thinkin' they can suckle off the govmint teat and get a free ride. Just turn 'em into lazy do-nothins.
I made this proposal in 1996 at a youth agency. All kids in public schools should have access to full breakfast, full lunch and an afternoon snack before going home.
Really got some traction there, hey?
an unsustainable empire that creates misery at home and abroad.
But are we really the richest country in the world, or are we just so used to saying it we don't question it. I smell books cooking.
Finland claims to be the "most prosperous" and we're no longer offering more social mobility than anyone else so perhaps we should re-examine our bragging rights -- I'm just sayin'. . .
The sickest
falling. And for the same reasons.
America is a failed state, to my eyes. Thank you, Greed. Thank you, sociopathic leaders of politics and business. Thank you, guillible and mindless, self-absorbed and selfish sheep.
You mean these kids are getting some kinda entitlement and they're not even turning a profit?!?
This must stop! They're not fetuses anymore, so it's about time they get a job.
Some of the African countries have the right idea - they let the kids join the military.
It's about time these worthless idlers got up off their butts and started serving the Corporate Directory.
If not, well; we've got plenty of private prisons...
(I'm channeling my inner conservative)
And huzzah, too!
If they can't be worked, perhaps they can be eaten.
motivator. I don't see any of these children holding down jobs.
... a 300+ million strong culture of apathy mindlessly consuming, mindlessly clapping their fins together, and mindlessly bleating "Orp! Orp!" with the seal pack, and mindlessly voting for the two Capitalist political parties -- ReThuglican and Dimbulbacrat -- over and over and over and over and over for 30 flag-wavin' Schaivo-tastic years ... and we knew better. Deep inside, we knew better because the anatomy of a mistake is one that is repeated over and over and over and -- when different results are expected -- those mistakes become the graveyard stone cold textbook definition of psychosis and insanity.
Vote crony Capitalist?!?
Get crony Capitalist, and deserve crony Capitalist ...
If they hadn't encouraged welfare mothers to have 10 children so they could enrich themselves on the public dole, we wouldn't have all of these shiftless, no good, generational idlers expecting the socialist big government to take care of them!
See - see - we tried to warn you, now we will say "I told you so".
Hurumph - we're always right
(I almost vomited when I re- read this. How could wingers talk like this and not gag.)
because they are blissfully unburdened by any trace of a functioning conscience. They either never had one, or following a long and heroic lifetime struggle, finally beat it down into effective non-existence.
concept regarding having more children to increase one's welfare check each month. As Social services doesn't give you enough money to properly care for one child, and they give you even less for each subsequent child, how can anyone make out on this "scam?" There I go again, trying to apply logic to right wing drivel.
exponentially more expensive, it doesn't take that much more to raise 3 compared to 2 or even 1. Housing costs do not necessarily rise nor do utility bills. Clothing can be hand me downs if they are taken care of or bought second hand.(I love the thrift store) Food costs do increase yes but the more people you feed the cheaper it can get per person. You can buy the larger (usually) cheaper packages and use them before they go bad. For schooling if they are poor enough to be on welfare/food stamps they are going to be getting tuition assistance.
enough money to care for one child? Don't cherry pick what I say, Timmy. And you are just wrong, as usual.
And what did I say that was incorrect?
as proof of bush's "concern for human life". For if it weren't for his continued support of the food stamp program (as a 'compassionate Conservative"), these kids would otherwise be in even worse shape, right???
The spin to begin in about 2 hrs on Lush's show...
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
O'Lierly and Lush will claim these kids simply don't exist.
-to their drugged parents, who have been known to sell their food card balances at half price, to opportunists who seek them out so they can eat high on the hog. The children never see the food, and the parents go to food banks to replace the difference--when they can.
Don't know if this is a black problem or not, but it's definitely done by white Southern druggies. The solution might be to issue children a separate card balance, and have school cafeterias serve two balanced meals.
also done by white(and black and yellow and etc) people in the north. And in some cases not for drugs or other indulgences, I have had people I know ask if I wanted to buy their stamps because they needed diapers/toilet paper etc. I didn't buy their stamps I took them to the store and bought them what they needed or if I had it just gave it to them.
On Raw Story the headline read "90% of black children receive food stamps"
I chewed them out so hard for feeding Right wing hate in the comments section that the article that was linked disappeared.
But too good to not share:
Jon Stewart Revels In Inane Election Coverage (VIDEO)
******
Weird that D's won 8 - I's won 1 - R's win 2 but it is the R's 2 that gets the coverage?
One more reason to use the off button on news-o-tainment.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
Jon Stewart rocks as usual.
.
How many revolutions started out as bread riots? When people dont eat they tend to get angry at those that are and not in the "we wont talk to you" kind of way.
I have come to the conclusion that the religous right really want to make America into some sort of third world theocracy, with the true believers of Christ in the posistions of power and money while all of the non believers will be regulated to poverty. OK not really but it does make me think that the Chriatian ideal is something that they just think is only for the true believers.
"Friends? Your friends? Hmpf, lock them in a room with no food for a week and then you'll see what is friends." - Vladek Speigelman
was the beginning of the end. We are graced with being able to observe the end of all this. Bush Co. went farther than is apparent in their quest to privatize the remaining government functions. Like the Post Office (partially privatized), Medicare (Medicare Advantage Plans), Medicare Part D (private insurance policies), private military contractors (Blackwater, Wackenhut, etc.), and a stab at Social Security. This was brought to the forefront by Ronald Reagan. I don't think he started it, though. It's been in the works for a very long time. Now, it's time to kill it.
I have come to the conclusion that the religious right really want to make America into some sort of third world theocracy, with the true believers of Christ in the positions of power and money while all of the non believers will be regulated to poverty.
Except there's going to be a whole lot of "believers" in line at the soup kitchens and food pantries. Whatever religious claims they may make otherwise, the real god these monsters worship is colored green and comes in portions of 1, 5, 20, etc.
That's what defines the elite in their minds, not which church, mosque, synagogue, or other place of worship you go to (or don't).
http://lancemannion.typepad.com/lance_mannion...
the republican response
We are a prosperous Nation with a growing economy.
We are a prosperous Nation with a growing economy.
We are a prosperous Nation with a growing economy.
doooogh
Unlimited Potential!
America thanks you for destroying our country. Thanks a F**K of a lot for empowering the wealthy elites to rob the working class blind to the point of being a nation of hungry kids. We really F**KING appreciate that!
Purchase! It's Christmas!!!!!!! Use the Plastic! Charge IT!!!
("An aerial view of the nation long about February 1st would show households blowing up like individual kernels of popcorn at an accelerating rate until the terrain itself was obscured by an evil fluff of financial woe suffocating the poor folks trapped under it.")
purchases. Cash only. Lets show Wall Street what we think about them. And we'll have a really good Christmas because it will be prepaid. No bills coming in January that will take months to pay off. We can also give some time to other people. That's free, and worth more than plastic crap from China.
about not banning the use of plastic at Christmas, and people only spending what they can afford? I have and probably will again use plastic for Christmas shopping. Do I charge more than I can afford? No I charge what I know I can easily pay off in the next month.
Thanks to the last 8 years of 'appointed by God' Conservatism, my family will be on food stamps before Christmas. I'm just waiting for the paper work to come in. I'm down to about $500 a month income and I have a wife and three kids to support on that.
Thanks, Republicans, for ruining America. God has damned you all.
been on them for quite a while myself (and family)
As an adult I have never, ever been on any form of public assistance. I've always been able to pay my own way. Even with 5 part time jobs.
Well, now, thanks to Conservative's constant 30 year attack on the American Economy, I am down to 2 part time jobs and have to start taking money from taxpayers so my family won't starve or freeze to death.
ALL Republicans are willfully ignorant morons.
But after a while you will accept it...you have no choice sometimes
if it does happen, I will feel no shame. I know where the blame lies.
Be strong, all who find yourselves in this position.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
Welcome to the situation that "misfits", "losers", plain women, and people with birth defects have lived all of our lives. So solly...if it takes this much to teach liberals some compassion. Conservatives who espouse so-called individualism have herded the cosmetically challenged into the unemployment comp office for decades, and now it's your turn.
My disabled youngest brother (43) will move in with us at the beginning of next month. The insurance corporation which now runs his pension plan has decided to drop him.
My mother will be moving in with us just before Turkey Worship Day. Her pension doesn't leave her much to live on.
Oh! Hey - this must be those Rapepublican Family Values I keep hearin' about!
that is uniquely American!!!
Chuckle, chuckle, sneer, sneer, snort, snort
To a woman who just announced she was working 3 jobs.
They are both idiots for thinking that is an acceptable form of human dignity.
for his being dropped from his pension plan? That doesn't sound legal.
I always wanted to see a zombie version of Oliver Twist:
"Please sir, I want some more."
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
....if we paid a "living wage" instead of a minimum wage and then subsidize the poverty wages with food stamps?
This country was built on the exploitation of cheap labor or as in the South, free labor.
The South has won the Civil War 140 years later.
We have 'free' labor now, since we do not pay workers a living wage (thanks to Saint Reagan).
.... a subsidy to the working poor, it is a subsidy to Corporations that allow them to get by with paying wages the workers can not live on.
Nailed it.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
Southerners were involved in the introduction of the original food stamp bill. Cannibalism of illegitimate infants had been discovered in TN and MS, women's lib, suddenly an issue, had brought pay inequity to the attention of the public, and the bill was intended to save lives and save sexist prick bosses' pink-collar wage scales.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplemental_Nut...
Not to mis-read your post, but did they serve those kids as light and dark meat?
I know, I have a sick mind.
ConAgra, et al., keep their sales up and thus their profits. NOTHING is more offensive and just plain wrong than corporate welfare.
The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (the data that was used for this study) doesn't include Hispanics or anyone who immigrated to the U.S. after 1968. That's a HUGE swath of the population, and group that is more likely to experience poverty than the national average. So most likely, this study is UNDERESTIMATING the use of food stamps over the last 30 years.
My own parents have told me that there were a few times we would have been on food stamps if not for help from my grandparents and friends from our church.
And the Republicans stopped counting people that were dropped from unemployment as unemployed during the Reagan days as a gimmick to pretend unemployment wasn't as high as it really is.
And the Republicans have been looting both Medicare and Social Security so they can claim Medicare and Social Security will be broke in the next decade.
Meanwhile the annual 20% increase in insurance premiums is completely unsustainable, but that is to be fiercely protected by both Republicans and the GOP operatives that call themselves 'democrats' in Congress.
If we calculated unemployment the way we did pre-Reagan, it would be around 17%. Almost 20% of the country unemployed.
Another one we can thank Reagan for. Unemployment benefits were not taxed before him. It was not enough that you lost your job and your wages have been reduced by half, lets tax that as well.
"Overall, about 49 percent of all children were on food stamps at some point by the age of 20, the analysis found. That includes 90 percent of black children and 37 percent of whites. The analysis didn't include other ethnic groups."
I'm not sure that the study didn't include Hispanics as part of the overall study, just that they may not have been singled out for specificity like blacks and whites.
Do you have a link to other info?
Thanks.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
I don't have links. I lived through it, my evidence is empirical.
"Nearly half of all U.S. children..." to include all children. It was only broken down by black/white race without consideration of ethnicity. This is probably because of the data used. Some data may have had race data, but not ethnicity. Some health data files will only have limited race categories like white, black, other, and unknown, as well. Hispanics were included in this data - it would probably have been impossible to eliminate them as a category.
I've seen some stuff, man. And some thangs...
No, it does not include all children. The article is simplifying a bit.
From the PSID website:
"The original PSID sample contains too few Latino households to
provide reliable estimates either for Latinos as a group or for
major subgroups of Latinos. In addition, Latinos entering the
U.S. since 1968 are not represented in the basic PSID sample
unless they co-reside with persons in the U.S. in 1968. To help
reduce these shortfalls a sample of 2,043 Latino households was
interviewed and added to the PSID sample beginning in the 1990
wave."
It looks like there is a supplemental sample but it does not go back as far as the original 1968 study, so it can't be directly compared. I'd be interested to see those numbers, though.
And there is always inherent error in any statistical analysis. They didn't break down the data specifically by ethnicity because of the data limitations. But going back to 1990, that is almost 20 years of data. As the Hispanic population has been the fastest rising in the country, I would argue the later data is a better representation than the earlier, anway. If Hispanic children were not included in the sample, it would have read "non-Hispanic white children." Race is hard enough to use as a variable because it is most often self-report data. Ethnicity is even more difficult, and often not even collected. There are algorhithms used in data (such as the National Association of Central Cancer Registies' Hispanic/Latino Identification Algorhithm) to help account for the misrepresentation of Hispanic individuals in health data. This study just kept it simple with white (including Hispanic whites) and black.
I've seen some stuff, man. And some thangs...
Thank you, fellow academic ;-)
you need to exploit the power of negative thinking these days.
Positivity doesn't sell anymore.
The problem with negative thinking is that it allows people to just give up.
why are you getting your panties in a twist for?
half the problems the U.S. faces would dissapear in an instant if you just brought in publicly funded elections.
why is only when kids are on food stamps is that unacceptable?
are people afraid of losing thier soapboxes if measures are taken to actually fix something.
you get the government you deserve.
we are safer AS A COUNTRY, right? So what if our children are not healthy and get poor educations? I'm sure this is bible god's wrath for teaching evolution and keeping prayer out of schools. Sorry, kidos.
I've seen some stuff, man. And some thangs...
It's the mental dependency on the incredibly huge lie of religion that helps cause this mess...there isn't any god. Nobody is going to jump in and save you, your family, or this overburdened planet, so you better get off your dead ass and do it yourself.
this is a Christian nation!
The richest bananna republic in the world.
Republicans are liars and simply cannot be trusted.
Saw plenty of 350 pound adults at my local Wally World yesterday.
I swear to fuck, as a species we have lost every sense of dignity and decency. When will the giant rock from outer space crash into us and end it all?
Before enlightenment - chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment - chop wood, carry water.
Fuck you
Before enlightenment - chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment - chop wood, carry water.
Ah yes , this wonderful dog eat dog unbridled balls out capitalism , it's a beautiful thing isn't it ? Now that I am older I look back and realize what a load of horse shit propaganda we were fed , we completely believed it . OK now , every body ! On three !( 1- 2 and ) Amerrrrrrrica the Beauti ....
Then please move to Venezuela...you can bask in the hunger, corruption, poverty, filth and crime that Socialism is bringing to that country, not to mention the total lack of opportunity for people to advance themselves and live better lives by working at it.
WTF bro?
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
One in which they have social protections, like free health care, free university, free child care and demand living--not minimum--wages for their citizens? One in which there are controls as to how much more a top executive can make relative to the lowest paid employee? Where because of these social nets, there is still a thriving middle class, little crime, little poverty?
Think before you start your ugliness.
There's no excuse for a statistic like that in this country. None whatsoever and to lash out and suggest moving to Venezuela proves you don't understand the problem at all.
Although I agree 100% with what you are saying, to suggest that the benefits they are receiving are "free" diminishes, in my opinion, how valuable they are.
Socialism has brought great things to this country. Why don't YOU move to a REAL capitalist country? Like Somalia.
Got your flag pin on when you type your drivel?
So how filling are the stamps?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Why is it that we place the blame everywhere except where it belongs,...on the don't-give-a-damn parents.
WTF bro?
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
A sad commentary on the state of US capitalism. America is for the rich only.
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
Nice to know Republicans care about chidren. Until they're born.
Why be surprised? The wealthy would love to see a return to feudalism, where there is no middle class, only the rich with power and military force to back it up while the poor serve them and work in "satanic mills".
The wealthy don't mine the US becoming a third-world country; in fact, they welcome it.
This ain't shit. Wait till the money runs out for unemployment and hyperinflation begins.
Nicole: I have a bone to pick with you. Like many other authors, you say "we need to protect children". While I agree that children are among the most vulnerable, they are not the only beings that need protecting. There seems to be a mindset in this country, (disregarding ReThuglicans that don't give a shit about anyone but themselves) that beyond the age of 12, 16, 20, or however you choose to define it, that everyone one else is capable of caring for themselves and therefore probably don't need help. I would suggest that you change your mindset and when feeling charitable include everyone that might need protecting.
And no, in case that's what you're thinking; I've led a very successful financial life and will probably never need financial help. In fact I have always advocated raising my (and your) taxes in order to provide healthcare and a minimally comfortable life for every American Citizen. I've concluded that because of Republicans and the Retarded Citizens (read "majority") of the South, it ain't likely to happen in my lifetime.
Several years ago when my boys were in high school band we had band camp. It went for four days from 8:00 in the morning until 8:00 at night. I fixed 2 meals a day. I fixed them good meals twice a day, this was the best meals some would have all summer. We wanted to make sure they had proper food.
They are free, in America as nowhere else, to hire an attorney to sue their parents for better conditions, say, a private car and driver to take them to school and a personal chef to prepare them meals to optimize their scholastic performance and attain the best paying jobs on the planet. Isn't Freedom what America is all about.
If they provide free food stamps for children they hav to provide free medicine stamps, too. The food which they give to children might be not very healthy and children could catch some deseas.
Alex, calories in egg calculated
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