c. 1996 Religion News Service
WASHINGTON _ Child poverty and hunger is more widespread in the United States than in any other industrialized nation and the government does less than any other country’s government to pull its children out of poverty, Bread for the World said Wednesday (Oct. 16).”The child poverty rate in the United States is three times the average for other industrial countries,”said David Beckmann, president of the grassroots Christian anti-hunger lobbying group.”In the richest country in the world, its senseless to have widespread hunger among children these days.
Beckmann spoke at a news conference unveiling Bread for the World’s annual report,”What Governments Can Do: Hunger 1997,”which said some 841 million people suffer from hunger worldwide. An estimated 12.4 million children under the age of 5 die annually from malnutrition and preventable diseases, the report said, and an estimated 1.3 billion people live on the equivalent of less than $1 a day.
In the United States, about 21.5 percent of the nation’s children _ 15.3 million _ were poor in 1994, the most recent figures available when the 129-page report was prepared. On Sept. 26, the Census Bureau released figures for 1995, showing that 20.8 percent of the nation’s children were poor, a slight decline, to 14.7 million children.
About 13.6 million American children are hungry or at risk of hunger, the report said, including about 4 million children under the age of 12.
U.S. poverty figures are far greater than any of the other industrialized nation, according to the Bread for the World report. Canada, with a child poverty rate of 13.5 in 1990-91 (the most recent figures available) ranked second. Finland and Sweden had the lowest rates of child poverty, 2.5 percent and 2.7 percent respectively.”Hunger is a problem which is easy in an industrial democracy to fix,”said Larry Brown, director of the Center on Hunger, Poverty and Nutrition Policy at Tufts University.”We have the ability to end hunger with the blink of an eye,”he said, adding that hunger _ not poverty _ could be eliminated”in six to eight months”if federal nutrition programs were fully funded and all eligible recipients were reached.”That hunger continues to exist is a failure of moral leadership,”he said.
In comparing the U.S. government’s anti-poverty and hunger efforts with other nations, Bread for the World looked at transfer payments such as food stamps and tax policies aimed at the poor.”Most other industrial-country governments’ policies have a stronger effect on hunger and poverty, especially among children,”the report said, citing such factors as access to health care, child allowances and tax policies. In France, for example, every mother _ regardless of income _ receives $2,400 upon the birth of a child, a monthly allowance of $120 following the birth of a second child, and free hospital and medical care before and after each birth. In the United States, food and medical care is limited to those who fall below certain income levels.”Tax and government benefit programs in the United States have a weaker impact on single-parent family poverty than those of other countries,”the report said.”The combination of relatively low benefit levels and over-reliance on means-tested programs contribute to poverty among single-mother families in the United States.” Bread for the World, based in Washington, D.C., claims 44,000 members nationwide. Beckmann said that the group is winding up a 10-month campaign to make child hunger an issue in the election campaign and its members have contacted virtually every candidate for Congress, asked them to sign a form promising, if elected, to support federal programs to help end childhood hunger.
Of the 1,430 candidates contacted, 476 have signed the pledge and 75 have declined. The remainder have not replied.”The leaders of this country can and must do a better job of protecting its poor children,”Beckmann said.”Voters should think about this when they vote in November.”
MJP END ANDERSON
