Were You Poor or Regular?

Despite the global financial crisis, the U.S. economy grew at its fastest pace in nearly 15 years in the last quarter of 1998, closing out a year in which Americans enjoyed the best combination of rapid growth, low unemployment, and low inflation in at least three decades (New York Times, 1999). With the GNP growing at an annual rate of 6.1 percent the United States continues to be "an oasis of prosperity," according to David Wyss, chief financial economist at Standard & Poor's DRI. By many measures of growth, unemployment, and low inflation, the country is already enjoying its best days since the 1960s, many analysts say.

Yet the prosperity enjoyed by many is not shared by all. "Across the United States, we are beginning to hear the rumblings of a quiet crisis. Our nation's children under the age of three and their families are in trouble, and their plight worsens every day," begins a 1994 report by the Carnegie Foundation. In 1996, 2.8 million children under age three and 5.5 million children under age six - 23 percent, or nearly one in four - lived in poverty. The numbers of children in extreme poverty - living in families with a combined income below 50 percent of the federal poverty line ($16,036 for a family of four) have dramatically increased over the last three decades. Of the 5.5 million poor young children, almost half (47 percent) lived in extreme poverty.

Due largely to a growing shortage in affordable housing and a simultaneous increase in poverty, the number of homeless families with children has increased significantly over the part decade. Families with children are currently the fastest growing group of the homeless population, constituting approximately 40% of people who are homeless (see Handout 2 (pdf format)). Although unemployment is a contributing factor in homelessness, employment is not a guarantee of stable housing. Declining wages for unskilled workers have put housing out of reach for many; in every state, more than the minimum wage is required to afford a one-or-two bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent.

While there are fewer children in poverty today than in 1993, the United States' peak year, the country continues to have the highest rate of young children in poverty of any Western industrialized nation (National Center for Children in Poverty, 1998). In addition, the United States has the highest rate of income inequality than any industrial country. In 1998, 111,000 households - one tenth of one percent of the 120 million income tax returns filed in 1996 - received more income than 18.1 percent of households. In 1997, the highest-earning Americans' share jumped again, to 19.9 percent (Uchitelle, 1999). When wealth is calculated, the gap is even more extreme; in 1996, the wealthiest one percent of U.S. citizens owned more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined.

What does being poor mean for America's children? In Raising Children in a Socially Toxic Environment (1995), author James Garbarino describes being poor as "being left out of what society tells people they could expect if they were included." He writes:

Recently, a child asked me, 'When you were growing up, were you poor or regular?' That's it precisely, are you poor or regular? Being poor means being negatively different; it means not meeting the basic standards set by your society. It is not so much a matter of what you have, but what you don't (p. 137).

In addition to feelings of shame and inadequacy that may be part of the experience of being poor in a country that places a high value on material success, poverty frequently has severe and negative consequences for children's health and well-being. Over the last decade, the numbers of people without health insurance has climbed from 31 million to 43 million; ten million children lacked health insurance in 1998 (Kilborn, 1999). A study by government researchers examining poverty, race, and single parenthood finds that "poverty had the strongest effect on children's health." According to the study conducted by researchers at the National Center for Health Statistics, poor children were 3.6 times more likely than more affluent children to have only fair or poor health. Research indicates that life in near poverty is almost as detrimental to children's health and development as living just below the poverty line, and that extreme poverty early in life is especially deleterious to children's future life chances (National Center for Children in Poverty [NCCP], 1996).

While being poor does not inevitably lead to problems in school, poverty's adverse effects on children and families have been well documented. Poverty gives rise to many types of deprivation and increases the likelihood that numerous risk factors are present simultaneously: in parents, child, health care, housing, support systems, schools, child care, and neighborhoods. Due to the interaction of multiple risk factors, children from poor and minority families are disproportionately at-risk for school failure. Nationally, poor children are three times more likely to drop out of school, and poor teen girls are five and a half times more likely to become teen mothers (Children First for Oregon, 1994).

The recently concluded report from the Columbia University-based NCCP concluded that young children in poverty face a greater risk of impaired brain development due to their exposure to a number of risk factors associated with poverty (see Handout 3 (pdf format)). Children living in poverty are more likely to:

• Be born at a low birth weight
• Be hospitalized during childhood
• Die in infancy or early childhood
• Receive lower-quality medical care
• Experience hunger and malnutrition
• Experience high levels of interpersonal conflict in their homes
• Be exposed to violence and environmental toxins in their neighborhoods
• Experience delays in their physical, cognitive, language, and emotional development, which in turn affect their readiness for school

The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (1996) reports that family income is related to child maltreatment rates in nearly every category of maltreatment. Children whose families earned below $15,000 were:

• More than 22 times more likely to experience some form of maltreatment
• More than 44 times more likely to be a neglected
• Sixty times more likely to die from maltreatment of some type under the Harm Standard,* and over 22 times more likely to die from abuse or neglect using the Endangerment Standard**
• Nearly 56 times more likely to be educationally neglected

* The Harm Standard requires a child to have already suffered demonstrable harm as a result of maltreatment in order to be "countable" (i.e., in order to be included in the estimated totals).

** In order to qualify as "endangered," the child's maltreatment had to have been substantiated or indicated by a child protective service agency, or a participating sentinel in a non-CPS agency (such as a teacher in a school, a nurse or social worker in a hospital, etc.).

According to J. Lawrence Aber, the director of the National Center for Children in Poverty, "The increasing number of poor young children reflects a 20-year trend that is having devastating consequences on children today whether they are toddlers or teenagers." Hodgkinson (1995) concludes. "If there is one universal finding from educational research it is that poverty is at the core of most school failures." Now, as in the past, socioeconomic status (SES) remains the best predictor of a child's future earning power.

Avoiding victimization. It is important to note that most low-income parents provide nurturing environments for their children's development, despite the difficulties presented by living in poverty. Many children from diverse cultural backgrounds, who may also be poor, have a great deal of knowledge and language competence that goes unrecognized by teachers who are predominantly white and middle-class. Thus, differences in verbal interaction and narrative styles may be interpreted as deficits (Delpit, 1995). Delpit points out that teacher education usually focuses on research that links failure and socioeconomic status, failure and cultural difference, and failure and single-parent households. "It is hard to believe that these children can possibly be successful after teachers have been so thoroughly exposed to so much negative indoctrination," says Delpit (p. 172).

Teachers, then, can do much to ameliorate the difficulties often experienced by children from low-income families by having positive exceptions for all children and by examining their own biases and beliefs regarding children living in poverty. When teachers see themselves and the children in their classrooms as "victims" of demographics, low expectations can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But Pianta and Walsh (1996) warn, "to dismiss the realities of poverty is to fall into a naïve romanticism under the guise of cultural sensitivity. Poverty is hard on people, and it is getting harder all the time" (p. 124).

Although schools alone can't solve all social problems, by becoming informed advocates for children and by forming partnerships with families, they can do much to reduce risk and foster resiliency. In addition, by understanding how children's developmental histories affect subsequent attitudes, behaviors, and adaptation to the school environment, they can more effectively address the needs of high-risk children. Developmental psychologists agree that many of the academic and behavioral problems young children have in the school setting stem from problems with the earliest relationships.

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