The Number Of Poor Children In School Is Still Growing

The rich have more money than ever before, the corporations are making bigger profits than ever before, and the stock market continues to grow and set record levels. The Republicans (and some Democrats) would like for you to think that means this country has recovered from the Bush recession, and justifies their "trickle-down" economic policies (which have remained intact because they have obstructed all attempts to change it).

Now they want to double down on that policy -- cutting the help for ordinary Americans, so they can give even more money to the rich and the corporations. In spite of the failure of their economic policy, they remain convinced that if we just give more to the rich, they will eventually share it with the rest of America. They ignore the fact that none of this money has been shared. Wages remain stagnant (and actually dropping when inflation is accounted for) and the rich now grab all of the rising productivity (instead of it being shared as it used to be).

The fact is that rising wealth for the rich, rising profits for the corporations, and record trades for the stock market are not very good economic indicators for the economy as a whole. The recovery has not reached below the wealthy class -- and the poor, the working class, and even the middle class (which continues to shrink) are all struggling just to maintain their current economic level. And many of them are losing that struggle.

The map above shows a very disturbing economic trend in this country -- the alarming growth of poor children in our schools. For the first time in this country, more than half of all school children qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches. The states in red are those where more than half of the children in schools are poor (for instance, the GOP "economic miracle" state of Texas has 60% of its children qualifying for the program). Isn't it interesting that most of those states are run by Republicans?

Here is how this troubling trend is described by Rebecca Klein in The Huffington Post:

For the first time, more than half of U.S. public school students live in low-income households, according to a new analysis from the Southern Education Foundation.

Overall, 51 percent of U.S. schoolchildren came from low-income households in 2013, according to the foundation, which analyzed data from National Center for Education Statistics on students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. Eligibility for free or subsidized lunch for students from low-income households serves as a proxy for gauging poverty, says the foundation, which advocates education equity for students in the South.

The report shows the percentage of schoolchildren from poor households has grown steadily for nearly a quarter-century, from 32 percent in 1989. "By 2006, the national rate was 42 percent and, after the Great Recession, the rate climbed in 2011 to 48 percent," says the report.

Kent McGuire, president of the Southern Education Foundation, told The Washington Post that the analysis shows poverty has reached a "watershed moment."

“The fact is, we’ve had growing inequality in the country for many years,” McGuire said. “It didn’t happen overnight, but it’s steadily been happening. Government used to be a source of leadership and innovation around issues of economic prosperity and upward mobility. Now we’re a country disinclined to invest in our young people.”

The analysis shows the highest percentages of poor students in Southern and Western states. Mississippi had the highest rate of low-income students -- 71 percent. New Hampshire had the lowest, at 27 percent.

“No longer can we consider the problems and needs of low income students simply a matter of fairness," the report says. "... Their success or failure in the public schools will determine the entire body of human capital and educational potential that the nation will possess in the future."