HOMELESS CHILDREN ON THE RISE MIRROR OUR ECONOMY. The other day corporate media and politicians propagated that the economy is doing very well. The soaring stock market and rising real estate price and rigged unemployment figures does not depict a thriving economy. We dont count the jailed, and those whove given up on finding or those working part time. The fact remains that for most people, life has not got any better since 2008 or 2009. Last week, an extraordinary and shameful study emerged from the National Center on Family Homelessness. The study confirmed that almost 2.5 million children in the US were homeless at some point during 2013. That’s one child in every thirty, in what we’re accustomed to thinking of as the richest nation on earth. In the most-recent months for which statistics exist, the rate of homelessness among children is spiking, increased 8% nationally from 2012 to 2013, and by 10% or more in 13 states and the District of Columbia. In 2006, one in 50 children was homeless. In 2010, it was one in 45. Now, in the age of Obama, the 2013 number is 1 in 30. The causes of homelessness among children are not your comforting stereotypes. These are “heartening because they encourage us to blame the drug-addicted, and pity the mentally ill. The one percent keeps us from questioning the capitalist system which declares that we must have poverty in the midst of plenty. And wonder why that most people are no more than a month or two from homelessness. America’s shameful surge in homeless children is caused by the fact that wages are NOT rising. In California, the nation’s most populous state 34% of households are paying more than half their annual income for rent, and while the state’s minimum wage is $8 an hour, a two-bedroom apartment at a third of annual income would require tripling the minimum wage to $25.78 an hour. The issue then, is poverty. Millions of children are not suffering because their parents have suddenly become addicted, or neglectful or lazy or stupid. Their parents, many of whom are working as hard as they can, are simply not able to afford a roof over their heads. I apologize Mr. Obama but the economy is not back of track, and it is time to tear up those tracks and built a track that works for us.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 08:47:25 +0000
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