blog 9

“Thirty-nine percent of the nation’s children—more than 28 million in 2005—live in low-income families”

How are we allowing this to happen in the world’s richest (even though we’re going through economic turmoil) nation? Why are we letting charities like food banks and shelters bear the burden of low income and impoverished families and more importantly the children it affects? We send 39% possibly more of our nation’s children to bed without a nutritional meal that does not sound like a land of plenty. Understanding the ‘pull yourself up by the boot straps mentality’ and even believing much of it there is no possible way most of these families can do that, there are too many struggles too much hardship for these families to gain any footing since it is hard enough just to survive.

“35% of black children live in poor families. 28% of Latino children live in poor families. 29% of American Indian.”
Yes, poverty does affect minorities more, which furthers claims that the government does not care enough about them. The children of this generation and even the ones before it are not the first to suffer poverty, they come from a long line of poverty and low income. The cycle is just continuing with them as their parents or more likely mother struggles to keep afloat. Their mothers work long hours struggle to find child care which probably hurts their slim chances of finding a stable job, they collect welfare and food stamps, the children are forced to attend below par schools which will never provide them the tools to claw their way out of poverty. If they are lucky they will finish high school or even go to college but the likelihood of that is slim. The fact that they are minorities almost forced into the ghettos and project housing into bad schools and in rough neighborhoods these mothers cannot afford to give their children anything but societies scraps because that is what they can manage and that is what they are given no matter how hard they try. Children shouldn’t suffer any longer because their mothers cannot afford simple necessities because they are heavily taxed, because we don’t put enough money towards everyone’s education and because our government chooses to ignore their needs. Working mothers have a hard enough time caring for their children if we require them to work we need them to require more assistance.