Isles' high housing costs taking a toll on children
The report, released Tuesday, placed
The economic recovery appears to have bypassed a significant number of children, nationally and in the islands, with child poverty rates higher than they were during the recession, the report said.
"Despite small improvements in recent years, the data show that, overall, the economic conditions of our children are worse now than they were in 2008, indicating that many families did not recover once the economy started improving," said
One out of 8 children were living in poverty in
The KIDS COUNT report understates the hardship faced by children in
"We have a higher rate of poverty than
The report found that 43 percent of children in
On the bright side,
Health insurance is widespread here, with only 3 percent of children lacking coverage in 2013, less than half the national rate of 7 percent, according to the report.
On the educational front, about half of
"The high cost of living in
Legislators recently raised the refundable food/excise tax credit slightly for poor families, effective next year. The first such increase in nearly a decade, it is intended to ease the burden of the general excise tax, which falls heavily on low-income households since they spend a bigger share of their income on the bare necessities.
Lee and other advocates for struggling families express hope that lawmakers also will create a state earned income tax credit, like the federal one, to give the working poor a better chance of making it. Half of the states have such a credit.
"It's an anti-poverty measure that has been most effective, and it's calibrated to working families with kids," Lee said. "It's an efficient program, a way to get money back into the pockets of low-income people and working families."
Stern noted that even a small increase in income can change the trajectory for kids born into poverty.
"Studies show that boosting low family income by just a few thousand dollars can really make a difference in changing outcomes for children, especially when this happens in early childhood," Stern said.
The data book is available online at aecf.org.
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