The Poor Get Poorer

Two decades ago Americans looked squarely at the gaunt faces of the poor and decided to pull their lives closer to those of most Americans in this affluent society. Private and public agencies alike went to work to improve education, nutrition and medical care, especially for young children. There was at least the appearance, and in many cases the reality, of progress. Now the gaunt faces are back. Two government agencies report that not only has the number of poor children increased but that also the poor have gotten poorer.

The Congressional Research Service and the Congressional Budget Office found that 22.2% of Americans under 18--that is, 13.8 million children--lived in poverty in 1983, the last year for which there is complete information. Although the total number of children declined by 9 million between 1968 and 1983, the number of poor children increased by 3 million. The agencies found that in 1968 the poorest fifth of all families had about 91% of the money that they needed to meet their basic needs. In 1983 they had only 60%.

The increase in poverty among children, which hits black children hardest, has many roots.More households are now headed by women, and there are more births to women who aren’t married. Three out of four children born to these unmarried women are poor. The report also says that a smaller proportion of poor children now receive food stamps and payments under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program.

This lost ground comes as no surprise. In February the Children’s Defense Fund, an advocacy group in Washington, reported that President Reagan’s budget proposed for the fifth straight year to grind down programs for poor families.

Poverty does not just mean living uncomfortably. Poverty injures and kills. Marion Wright Edelman, who heads the fund, pointed out that more children die each year from poverty-related causes like low birthweight and birth defects from inadequate prenatal care or malnutrition than from traffic accidents and suicide combined. “Over a five-year period, more American children die from poverty than the total number of American battle deaths in the Vietnam War,” she said.

This poverty and these deaths are preventable. The nation should not be cutting back on immunizing poor children against disease, on helping teenagers learn about birth control, on preventing infant deaths by providing impoverished pregnant women with proper nutrition and health care. It should not be cutting back on seeking shelter for the homeless, on improving child-care facilities, on providing meaningful job training for women so that they will not remain dependent on welfare.

After two decades it is clear that Americans know more about poverty and how to try to combat it. It is equally clear that not everyone has been doing the job. Just ask the children.