Two sides
Toolbox
Published: November 4, 2009
There's good news – Ford posting an impressive profit and economists suggesting the recession is over, for example – but that's small comfort to those many Americans who still are unable to find work or to meet their mortgage payments.
Also disturbing is a newly released study that predicts that nearly half of all American children – and a whopping 90 percent of black American children – will need food stamps some time during their childhood. Researchers add that the effects of the present economy may nudge the numbers even higher.
That's not in tune with the image of the United States that most of us cherish. This is, we have been told for years, the land of milk and honey, the world's most advanced country, the one nation in the world you'd choose to live in if you were seeking unlimited opportunities to live the Good Life.
The new study is based on an analysis of 30 years of statistics and, according to one its authors, Mark Rank of Washington University in St. Louis, it suggests that nearly everyone knows a family that has received food stamps or will in the future. Again, that's not how we tend to see ourselves.
"Your neighbor may be using some of these programs but it's not the kind of thing people want to talk about," Rank remarked. "This is a real danger sign that we as a society need to do a lot more to protect children."
The analysis was released Monday in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. The authors emphasized that it's a medical issue pediatricians should be aware of for the simple reason that children who are on food stamps are believed to be at risk for malnutrition and other medical problems associated with poverty.
The Department of Agriculture's food stamp program is designed to help low-income individuals and families cover the cost of most foods, but neither hot foods nor alcohol. For a family of four to be eligible, its annual take-home pay can't exceed approximately $22,000.
According to a recent USDA report, 28.4 million Americans received food stamps in an average month in 2008, and about half of them were younger than 18. The average monthly benefit per household was $222, which adds up to $2,664.
Cornell University sociologist Thomas Hirschl joined Rank in studying the data from a nationally representative survey of 4,800 American households – it involved about 18,000 adults and children – interviewed annually from 1968 through 1997 by the University of Michigan.
About 49 percent of all the children – 90 percent of black children and 37 percent of whites – covered by the study were on food stamps at some point by the age of 20, the analysis showed. The analysis didn't include other ethnic groups.
"The current recession is likely to generate for children in the United States the greatest level of material deprivation that we will see in our professional lifetimes," Stanford pediatrician Dr. Paul Wise wrote in the report. He added that he believes the study's conclusions are believable.
Let's be happy for Ford (and hope that General Motors and Chrysler catch up soon), and let's not be too contemptuous of those wealthy Wall Street types who seem to make their own rules and thereby rake in huge bonuses even when their companies lose money.
But all Americans, regardless of their political leanings, should not lose sight of the plight of those unfortunates – especially the children – on the other side of the financial equation. The United States must do better.
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