Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 6, 1995 TAG: 9502080015
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
He could have said the same about the pet projects of many other politicians - from President Clinton's ``middle-class bill of rights'' to Virginia Gov. George Allen's apparently defunct proposal to eliminate the local-option gross-receipts tax on Virginia businesses.
Interest in welfare reform comes closer to the "moral urgency" of which Gingrich spoke; impetus for reform is, at least in part, the harm that welfare dependency does to the dependent.
But even with welfare reform, the tendency is to focus almost exclusively on single mothers, and to overlook or make only passing reference to the largest group of ``poorest Americans'': children under 6.
Comes this month yet another report, this one from the National Center for Children in Poverty, reminding America as to just how miserably public policy has failed to solve or even alleviate child poverty. Quite the reverse: From 1987 to 1992, the number of young children in poverty increased from 5 million to 6 million.
That reflects an all-time-high poverty rate of 26 percent in the newborn-to-6 age group. This is more than double the poverty rate for adults 18 to 64; double the rate for Americans 65 and older; and substantially higher than the rate for older children.
The parents of most of these children work. The parents of fewer than a third rely exclusively on welfare checks for income. Nearly 60 percent of the 6 million children in poverty live in homes where one parent or both parents work at full-time or part-time jobs.
The report confirms much that's long been known. Children who live with unmarried mothers are almost five times as likely to be poor as those living with married parents. Young children with better-educated parents are much less likely than others to be poor.
The report underscores what should by now be obvious to all: Child poverty is not limited to racial minorities, nor is it limited to inner cities - though child-poverty rates are disproportionately high for minority groups and in urban areas.
Clearly, the findings of this and other recent studies on child poverty ought to be informing numerous public-policy decisions - not just welfare reform, but also such issues as health-care reform; child-support enforcement; the quality of public education; accessibility to higher education; day care; teen-pregnancy prevention.
Into this stew add also President Clinton's proposal for an increase in the minimum wage. At $4.25 per hour, many parents who were employed full-time and year-round in minimum-wage jobs could not earn enough in 1992 to keep their families out of poverty, the National Center's report shows. Clinton's expansion of the earned-income tax credit has brought such working families closer to breaking through the poverty barrier, but it has not closed the gap entirely.
If the report does nothing more, let it drive home the fact that the face of poverty in America today is more complex than is frequently portrayed. It includes not only the welfare-dependent but also working families, and it includes a growing number of very young children.
This is a matter of practical urgency. If the grind of poverty continues to haunt more than a quarter of American children from their very birth, what does the future hold in store for them and for the society into which they will mature?
But Gingrich was right: It is a matter also of moral urgency.
by CNB