EARLY CHILDHOOD POVERTY
It is well known that the economic conditions of early childhood have a marked impact on subsequent physical, emotional, intellectual and social development. Yet, it is precisely in the area of early childhood where U.S. poverty rates are among the highest.
According to a recent study by the National Center for Children in Poverty, which is associated with Columbia University, "almost one in five young children (18% in 2000) in the U.S. lives in poverty during the early years that are so important to future life chances. The 2.1 million children under age three who are poor face a greater likelihood of impaired development because of their increased exposure to a number of factors associated with poverty." Such factors include inadequate nutrition, environmental toxins, diminished interaction due to maternal depression, trauma and abuse, lower quality childcare, and parental substance abuse.
These staggering figures actually represent the reduction in child poverty during the boom years of the 1990s, a phenomenon that is being reversed as the U.S. economy worsens and the consequences of cut-backs in social welfare funding become abusively evident.
According to a report about the study ("Early Childhood Poverty: A Statistical Profile") by the center's Younghwan Song and Hsien-Hen Lu, children of one and two years are "more likely to be poor than any other age group.... Two out of every five young children under age three lived in poor or nearly poor families in 2000." This means 4.7 million babies and toddlers in the wealthiest country in the world are growing up in poverty or near poverty.
The great majority of early childhood victims of poverty live in working families -- but wages are low and social services are inadequate. The report points out that "only 11% of poor children under three live in families relying exclusively on public assistance." Most of the poor families are headed by a single parent, usually a young woman who receives pitifully little support from her government. Statistically, the children of national minorities subjugated by racism are disproportionately poor.
In conclusion, the report notes that early childhood poverty will increase unless remedial economic and social programs -- which are hardly on the political horizon for either the Republican or Democratic parties -- are implemented. "Other nations with fewer resources than the United States have been able to do a far better job of preventing poverty among their young children," the authors point out.
The high rate of early childhood poverty in the U.S. is the extreme and devastating product of class inequality, all the more rampant for its systematic disavowal by the mighty and their minions. Obviously, the plight of these tots will hardly merit attention from the most powerful ruling class in history until its own selfish interests are threatened.
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ENLIGHTENED SELF-INTEREST
What's it really going to take to win the war on terrorism? The magic of the marketplace and a strong dose of entrepreneurial "enlightened self-interest," that's what. It's no secret that the U.S. business community is salivating at the prospect of federal and state government spending of nearly $60 billion next year on so-called homeland security (not to mention a defense budget now bloated to almost $400 billion). And this kind of spending is only the beginning, according to the White House. USA Today says the new homeland defense business is creating a "marketing frenzy" by thousands of companies seeking to cash in on the unexpected bonanza. In a recent address to the Electronics Industries Alliance, a trade association for high-tech manufacturers, Tom Ridge, the Director of Homeland Security, told the assembled corporate leaders: "The entrepreneurial spirit is a potent weapon against terrorism. We look to your enlightened self-interest. We want you to do well by doing good."