Over Half Of U.S. Children Will Be On Food Stamps

Mark Rank of Washington University and Thomas Hirschi of Cornell University has announced the results of a new study they have completed -- a study published in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. The results of this study should make all decent Americans ashamed.

The survey included a look at American children through both good and bad times, including the recession of 1980. It determined that about half (49%) of all American children will be on food stamps at some time before reaching the age of twenty. Did you hear that? Half of all children in this country will be on food stamps!

And that doesn't even include the current recession (depression?) that we find ourselves in, which is deeper than any since the Great Depression. That means as more and more jobs are lost, we can expect that 49% figure to rise even further.

Stanford pediatrician Dr. Paul Wise says, "The current recession is likely to generate for children in the United States the greatest level of material deprivation that we will see in our professional lifetimes. I find it terribly sad, but not surprising."

This is not a new thing. It started with trickle-down supply-side economics that saw unions busted, wages depressed or stagnated, and jobs being shipped overseas. The rich and the corporations stopped caring about community responsibility or working folks. The only thing became making bigger short-term profits and screw the future.

Now we are having to pay the piper. But as usual, it's not the rich that has to pay. It's the working-class -- especially the children. Isn't America wonderful?