From: Nigel Allen <nigel.allen@canrem.com>
Subject: Families Devastated by Shrinking Incomes, Soaring Poverty (1/3)
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 16:15:10 GMT

press release from Children's Defence Fund April 14, 1992

 America's Young Families With Children Devastated by Two Decades
of Shrinking Incomes, Soaring Poverty
 To: National Desk
 Contact: Stella Ogata or Claude Duncan of the Children's Defense
          Fund, 202-628-8787

   WASHINGTON, April 14 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Nearly two decades of
shrinking incomes and soaring poverty have devastated all types of
young families with children, turning the gap that has always
existed between them and older, more established families into a
chasm.
   "The implicit message to young Americans is frighteningly clear:
bearing and raising and nurturing children may no longer be
compatible with active pursuit of the American dream," said Marian
Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund.  "No
society can convey this message for long if it hopes to survive and
prosper."
   According to "Vanishing Dreams: The Economic Plight of America's
Young Families," a detailed analysis by the Children's Defense Fund
in cooperation with Northeastern University's Center for Labor
Market Studies of economic trends affecting families with children
headed by persons under age 30:
   -- After adjusting for inflation, the median income of young
families with children plunged by nearly one-third -- 32 percent --
between 1973 and 1990.  For older families with children it dropped
by only 6 percent, and for families without children it actually
increased by 11 percent.
   -- These income losses in family income from all sources have
affected virtually every group of young families with children:
white, black and Latino; married-couple and single-parent; and
those headed by high school graduates as well as high school drop
outs.  Only young families with children headed by a college
graduate experienced a slight increase in their median income
between 1973 and 1990.
   -- The huge income decline for young families greatly worsened
the gap between them and other Americans.  The median income for
young families with children was more than two-thirds that of older
families with children in 1973; by 1990 it had fallen to less than
one-half that of older families.
   As a result of these income losses, the poverty rate for
children in young families doubled from 20 percent in 1973 to a
shocking 40 percent in 1990.
   -- The dramatically increased child poverty in young families
does not reflect only the problems of America's most vulnerable
populations.  Those groups that a generation ago were largely
insulated from high child poverty rates have been stripped of that
insulation.  Between 1973 and 1990 child poverty rates more than
doubled in young white families (to 27 percent in 1990), young
married-couple families (to 20 percent), and young families headed
by high school graduates (to 33 percent).
   -- There were also astronomical increases in the child poverty
rates of groups that have always had high poverty rates: in young
black families, the 1990 child poverty rate was 68 percent; in
young Latino families, 51 percent; in young female-headed families,
77 percent; and in young families headed by high school dropouts,
64 percent.
   -- In virtually every critical area of child development and
healthy maturation, child poverty creates major roadblocks to
individual accomplishment, future economic self-sufficiency, and
national progress.  Studies show, unsurprisingly, that a poor child
is more likely than a nonpoor child to go without necessary food,
shelter, and health care and to die in infancy.  Poor children also
are less likely than nonpoor children to be in good preschool
programs or child care settings, and more likely to fall behind in
school, drop out, get pregnant too soon, or be unemployed.
   -- The economic plight of young families is a national, not just
an urban or a regional problem.  Nearly three-fourths of the
increase in the number of young families with children living in
poverty came outside central cities.  Young families with children
in every region of the country suffered sharp declines in median
income and steep increases in poverty between 1973 and 1989, even
before the current recession further battered all regional
economies.
   Young families are in trouble because of a devastating
combination of profound changes in the American economy,
government's inadequate response to families in trouble, and
changes in the composition of young families themselves.
   Failing real wages (abetted by the drop in the minimum wage's
value) and the growth of part-time, part-year, and temporary jobs
all contributed to a cataclysmic decline in annual earnings for
young workers.
   -- Median annual earnings of heads of young families with
children plummeted by 44 percent between 1973 and 1990.  These
inflation-adjusted earnings losses were staggering for heads of
young white families with children (40 percent), for high school
graduates heading young families with children (41 percent), and
for heads of young married-couple families with children (33
percent), as well as for heads of young families with children who
were minorities (black: 71 percent; Latino: 44 percent) and high
school dropouts (70 percent).
--
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