The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

The Times-Picayune
Child poverty in La. grows, study says
State's statistics worsen in 8 of 10 categories
Wednesday, July 27, 2005

By Gwen Filosa
Staff writer

Louisiana's child poverty rate, perennially among the worst in the nation, soared by a staggering 11 percent between 2000 and 2003, according to a major national study. As many as half the state's youngsters live in households with incomes below the poverty level and 30 percent of them are trapped in outright destitution, the study found.

Released today, the Kids Count survey ranks Louisiana 49th in the United States when an array of indicators for child well-being are factored together, among them rates of child death, single-parent homes and households where parents don't hold full-time jobs.

Only Mississippi ranks below Louisiana in the overall compilation by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a nonprofit agency based in Baltimore that watches over the welfare of the nation's children.

"Louisiana is getting worse faster than the rest of the country," said William O'Hare, the researcher for Casey who wrote this year's study, the 16th produced annually by the foundation.

Of 10 categories that O'Hare studied, Louisiana's statistics grew worse in eight, including infant mortality, high school dropouts and teen deaths. Louisiana made improvements in two of the 10 categories: Teen birthrate and percentage of teens not attending school and not working.

Deadly consequences

The teen death rate was Louisiana's poorest performance in the report, having risen by 18 percent between 2000 and 2002 for those 15 to 19 years old. Louisiana's infant mortality rate jumped 14 percent and the child death rate, ages 1 to 14, rose by 9 percent.

Louisiana's children made progress by reducing the rate of teenagers giving birth, a 6 percent decline in stride with a national trend that began several years ago.

Across the country, child poverty has been on the increase since the late 1990s, the report said. Four million children live in low-income households in which neither a parent nor any other adult worked in the previous year.

Between 2000 and 2004, the number of children living in low-income
households jumped from 2.9 million to 3.9 million, the study found. One million of those children reside in suburbs, while 600,000 live in rural America.

'Moving in wrong direction'

In Louisiana, about one child in 10 lives in a home in which neither parent holds down a formal full-time job. "The data is discouraging since we're moving in the wrong direction," said Shannon Johnson, of Agenda for Children in New Orleans, a child advocacy
nonprofit. "We absolutely have to look at child poverty and the problems facing children in the state in the context of the family. Domestic violence, substance abuse, all of these things are related to the fact that 9 percent of kids live in households where no one works."

Four employment barriers that experts consider the most difficult to
overcome conspire against these poor families, the Casey Foundation said: substance abuse, domestic violence, depression and a history of
incarceration.

Louisiana has, by far, the nation's highest incarceration rate, with nearly 37,000 people in the state prison system alone. In the United States, more than 2 million men and women are locked up in prisons or jails. "Far too often, particularly for the formerly incarcerated, they can also negatively influence potential employers' hiring decisions," the Casey report said. "Parental incarceration takes an obvious toll on children, which typically reveals itself in lower self-esteem, depression, emotional withdrawal, and disruptive and delinquent behavior. It also has a significant impact on their economic well-being."

Douglas Nelson, president of the Casey Foundation, said, "Too many parents want to work their way out of poverty, but are unable to do so. The futures of too many kids, as a result, are severely compromised."

Those who spend their days on the front lines of the poverty battle in New Orleans said disadvantaged children often go home to very young parents -- or no parents at all.

"They are dealing with parents who are absentee," said Sharon Alexis, a program administrator for the Gert Town Family Center, part of the area's Catholic Charities. "The parents who are young parents and don't have the nurturing skills, parents who leave them to fend for themselves -- they don't have the skills to tutor their kids. They are not equipped for today's job market."

Federal statisticians define "poverty level" and "low-income" based on income thresholds. Earning a few dollars more than the standard $18,660 a year, the national poverty benchmark, puts a family of four out of the study's grasp -- yet not out of harm's way, O'Hare said.

"If you make $18,661, you're not 'poor,' " he said. "But we know kids in those families are still needy. As stark as it is, the real story is probably even worse."

Impact of bias cited

The Deep South has lagged behind the rest of the nation in each of the 16 years that Casey has published its Kids Count report. A dearth of good-paying jobs with health-care benefits and the region's history of racial oppression are some of the reasons behind the poor rankings, O'Hare said.

"A segment of the population there was not allowed into the mainstream for years, and we're still seeing the vestiges of that experience," O'Hare said.

Along with home ownership, establishing small businesses in city
neighborhoods is an important step toward helping families out of poverty.

But while many city residents have marketable skills, they lack the bankroll to rise from workers to employers, said Rep. Jalila Jefferson-Bullock, D-New Orleans, an advocate of mixing government and private-sector money to create a business start-up fund. "The point is to help people help themselves, by becoming business owners," Jefferson-Bullock said. "It is just one small
pieces of the pie in creating wealth."

. . . . . . .

http://www.nola.com/news/tp/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news4/11224404441442 0.xml

For the complete report, visit www.kidscount.org. Gwen Filosa can be reached
at gfilosa@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3304.