From: Nigel Allen <nigel.allen@canrem.com>
Subject: Families Devastated by Shrinking Incomes, Soaring Poverty (2/3)
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 16:15:19 GMT



   -- Earnings losses for family heads were even greater than the
decline in total family income, in part because so many families
responded to the earnings loss by sending a second worker into the
labor market.  This strategy to sustain total family income only
worked partially for families and has several drawbacks as well:
higher child care costs, less time with children, and more familial
stress.
   -- Nearly one-half of the increase in poverty among young
families and children between 1973 and 1989 (before the start of
the current recession) can be attributed to the changes in jobs and
wages and to government policies that have made it less likely that
government help would lift young families out of poverty.  These
changes have hurt all young families with children, regardless of
their family structure, race or ethnicity, or educational
attainment.
   -- Earnings and income losses were huge before the current
recession.  The greatest part of income losses for young families
with children occurred during the 1980s.  Their median income fell
by 19 percent as a result of back-to-back recessions in 1980 and
1981-1982, and only rose by an insignificant 1.4 percent during the
remainder of the decade.  The current recession sent young families
with children into an economic freefall, with their median income
plunging by 9 percent in a single year from 1989 to 1990.
   The rest of the increase in poverty among young families and
children reflects changing family composition.
   -- Today's young family heads are somewhat better educated than
those in the generation preceding them, which would increase
incomes, but they also are more likely to be minorities or single
women struggling to raise children on their own.  Because these
groups have considerably lower earnings and higher poverty rates to
begin with, poverty among young families and children rises as
their share of the total group of young families rises.
   -- The growth in young female-headed families with children is
in part a reflection of changing values.  But the economic
hardships associated with falling earnings and persistent
joblessness among young adults also have contributed significantly
to falling marriage rates, the increasing rates of out-of-wedlock
childbearing, and growing numbers of single-parent families.
   -- The fastest growth in out-of-wedlock childbearing has
occurred among women in their twenties, not among teenagers.
   -- Increases in poverty among children in young families are not
the result of young Americans having more children.  Indeed, young
families as a group have responded to a tightening economic vise by
postponing childbearing and choosing to have fewer children.  But
these attempts to adapt their behavior have been overwhelmed by the
sweeping economic and social changes that now place young families
with children in great jeopardy.
   "The current generation of young adults generally is no less
educated, motivated, or responsible than its predecessors, " said
Edelman.  "As a group, they are more likely to complete high
school, enroll in college, delay childbearing, and prepare for
their futures than the generation before them.  But in fundamental
ways, the rules have changed.  Young Americans now are less able to
build a foundation for their own economic security, form stable
families, provide adequate support for their children or have hope
and confidence in the future.  As a group, they are falling further
behind older Americans and are bearing most of the burden of the
nation's massive economic and social change and its loss in jobs
and income.
   Edelman said that a child in a family headed by a parent younger
than 30 is:
   -- Twice as likely to be poor today as a comparable child in
1973;
   -- If living with both parents, two and a half times as likely
to be poor as in 1973;
   -- Nearly three times more likely to have been born
out-of-wedlock than a child two decades ago;
   -- One third less likely to be living in a home owned by his
family than a child just a decade ago;
   -- Three times more likely to live in a family that pays over
half its income for rent than in 1974; and
   -- Less than half as likely to be pulled out of poverty by
government help as his counterpart one generation back.
   "America's young families cannot wait another year for a
response to the economic disaster that has struck them," Edelman
said.  "While the deterioration of their economic status will not
be reversed quickly or easily, immediate steps must be taken by
Congress in 1992.  First, it is absolutely essential that Congress
brings down the anachronistic and unfair budget walls that have
locked in Cold War spending patterns for a post-Cold War world.
We're still spending $9,718 per second for defense against
vanishing enemies but only $707 per second on child health and only
$70 per second on Head Start to start restoring the American dream.
We need to make the budget walls vanish and act immediately in
three areas to ensure that every child has a Fair Start, a Healthy
Start, and a Head Start.
--
Canada Remote Systems  - Toronto, Ontario/Detroit, MI
World's Largest PCBOARD System - 416-629-7000/629-7044

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