Economists may have declared the recession officially over, but for the very
young, some of its effects are likely to last a lifetime, two new national
reports predict.
Unfortunately, the national data are likely to hold
true for Minnesota, too.
During past recessions, Minnesota kids
generally have fared better than their peers across the country, according to
Jim Koppel, regional director of the Children's Defense
Fund-Minnesota.
"Our economy was a little more diverse, a little more robust. But this one is
different. It's been as tough here as elsewhere," he said.
"Families have
never had less in the last 10 years and yet never needed more," Koppel said. "If
one thing goes away — the car breaks, the job is lost — it all comes apart. And
we tend to let these families fail before we get
involved."
Downturn wiping out virtually all progress since
1975
Indeed, the national downturn will wipe out virtually all
progress made since 1975, the year the Foundation for Child Development began
tracking family economic well-being, the organization reports.
Because a
recession exposes children to "toxic stress" while their brains and bodies are
growing, they can't bounce back the way adults can. Key developments take place
between birth and age 3, making children born into poverty during the last three
years especially vulnerable to hunger, a lack of health care and parental
unemployment.
By age 5, a child raised in poverty is likely to be 18
months behind developmentally, Kopple explained. "They're not ready to go to
school, they're not getting proper nutrition. "The chances of them recovering
from that are nominal and very individual."
A few resilient kids
flourish anyhow, but for most, the long-term consequences of being a young child
during a recession include higher rates of risky behavior, obesity, crime,
school drop-out and unemployment. For society, long-term economic costs include
reduced productivity, the cost of crime and increased health
expenditures.
Nationwide, this year, 22 percent of children are living
below the federal poverty line — the highest rate of the last 20 years,
according to the private, New York-based foundation.
Meanwhile, according to the
second report, based on research from the Council on Contemporary Families, children who fell into
poverty during the recessions of the 1970s and '80s were three times more likely
than their peers to be poor as adults. Past research suggests that children who
spend more than half of their childhood in poverty earn, on average, 39 percent
less than the median income.
The effect will be particularly pronounced
in schools, both national surveys and Minesota's Children's Defense Fund
predict. Without high-quality early childhood education, poor children are
likely to start lagging behind wealthier peers right away — a gap that typically
snowballs as kids grow up.
The Minnesota
picture
Every year, Koppel's group produces KIDS COUNT, a
statistical portrait of child poverty in Minnesota. Using data from 2008, the most recent
survey (PDF) found that the percentage of Minnesota children living in
poverty grew by almost a third between 2000 and 2008, to a total of
149,000.
By applying a formula devised by the Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities that forecasts the number of children likely to be impoverished by
increases in the unemployment, CDF-Minnesota predicted that by the time the
recession ended in 2010, an additional 33 percent of Minnesota children — up to
205,000 — would have fallen into poverty.
A disproportionate number are
minorities. In 2008, 40 percent of African-American children lived in poverty,
compared with 7 percent of white children.
The year before, Minnesota
had the highest percentage of impoverished Asian children in the country, at 24
percent, the local group found.
The Minnesota statistics don't tell the
whole story, Koppel added, because the federal income threshold for poverty is
so low: less than $22,000 for a family of four. Many more families are
struggling to get by on twice that amount at a time when social services have
been cut to the bone.
There are a few bright spots. The Council on
Contemporary Families notes that volunteerism and other forms of community
involvement are on the rise. And CDF-Minnesota found the number of the state's
abused and neglected children dropped from 10,000 in 2002 to 6,277 in 2007, a
trend that's mirrored on the national level.
"I do believe the message
about not hitting a child or physically abusing a child is getting through and
reaching into more and more communities," said Koppel.
Beth Hawkins
writes about criminal justice, schools and other topics.