Children’s Survey Has Bleak News

A majority of poor families in the state include parents who hold down full- or part-time jobs that do not pay enough to move them above the poverty line, according to a new report that paints a bleak picture of the economic well-being of California’s children.

At least 1.5 million children of working parents lack such basic necessities as adequate nutrition, health insurance, affordable housing, preschool education and access to after-school programs, according to the report scheduled to be released today by Children Now.

The public policy group’s annual report on the status of California’s children tracks conditions in the state’s 58 counties as well as nationwide trends. This year it focused on economic constraints as well as health, education, safety and problems facing teenagers.

The report notes that the recent overhaul of federal welfare laws will pose additional challenges as more and more families compete for lower-paying entry-level jobs that frequently do not provide health insurance and other benefits for their employees.

It calls on private employers and state officials to provide greater levels of support for the working poor.

“There has been a real demonization of the poor with the implicit accusation that poor people are not working and are not trying to, when what we see is that many are working and are having a hard time earning a decent standard of living,” said Amy Dominguez-Arms, director of public policy for Children Now.

Among the study’s highlights:

* In 1993, at least 1.9 million California children (one in five) had no health insurance, either public or private, and employer-based health insurance has been declining.

* The state Department of Education estimates that 1.6 million children are eligible for subsidized child care, yet only about 250,000 youngsters are currently served.

* A new national study estimates that 37% of California’s children are at risk of hunger because of their low family income. Recent federal cuts to the food stamp program will decrease the average food assistance per household by $537 annually in 1998.

* A key factor in the financial security of children is effective child support enforcement, yet California ranks 47th out of 54 states and territories in its enforcement record.

The report’s authors attribute their findings to a two-decade trend of plummeting wages, loss of traditionally higher-paying manufacturing jobs and cuts to public assistance.

“We’ve changed from a manufacturing-based society with good-paying jobs to a service-based economy with lower wages, and we need to refocus our public policy to respond to this,” Dominguez-Arms said.

She said that most low-income families will not be lifted out of poverty even when the federal minimum wage increases to $5.15 an hour next September. The federal poverty level for a family of four is $16,071. Working full-time at the minimum wage of $5.15, a family would earn about $10,700, still falling about $5,371 below the poverty line.

Los Angeles County rated poorly in many areas, its 270 youth homicides in 1995 far and away the highest number among California counties. It also ranked 56 out of 58 counties in its high school dropout rate. It ranked ninth in monthly child care costs ($439) and eighth in the cost of housing, with a median monthly rent of $855.

Los Angeles also had the 16th-lowest rate of child abuse, with Alpine County having the highest rate. Marin County had the lowest rate of child abuse, followed by Kern, Napa and Solano counties.

Orange County ranked 21st in its high school dropout rate, 26th in teenage births and 27th in juvenile arrests.

This year’s report also included some encouraging trends. In 1994, 96% of mothers received prenatal care during the early and middle stages of pregnancy. The proportion of children in foster care in the state has leveled off after rising steadily for the past decade, although the California rate remains 59% above the national average.

Even though the teenage birth rate in California has declined slightly, teenagers in the state continue to have babies at a significantly higher rate than the national average, with 68,643 babies born to teenagers between 15 and 19 in 1993, the most recent date for which data was available.

Wendy Lazarus, director of The Children’s Partnership, a Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.-based policy center, said she was not surprised at the report’s findings.

“This report shows how difficult--and sometimes impossible--it is for families to make ends meet,” said Lazarus, “and it sets out some basic changes that need to be made before we can say that California supports its working families and their children.”

Lazarus said the shift in responsibility for welfare laws from the federal government to the state may actually offer hope for changes in public attitudes about the poor.

“In a way, the debate changes from welfare and public assistance to how do we make work workable for people,” she said. “I think there’s a public sentiment that if parents do their hardest to work, we want them to succeed. There’s a basic ethic of fairness that most people in the state adhere to.”

The California Now report offers a number of specific recommendations to improve conditions for the working poor, including creation of a state earned income tax credit to supplement support already offered by the federal earned income tax credit, expanded health insurance coverage, increased authority for the state Franchise Tax Board to collect delinquent child support payments and increased funding of subsidized child care.

The report also calls on the private sector to create jobs that provide a livable wage, health insurance and flexible work schedules for its employees.

Bria Southern, a 20-year-old Hawthorne mother, said she would not be able to make ends meet without the help of subsidized child care from her employer. She earns $9.50 an hour as a medical assistant, but child care costs for her 19-month-old daughter are nearly $200 a month.

“Child care is a very big portion of raising a child ‘cause it takes so much effort and time and usually money to find good child care,” she said. “It would be a lot harder if I didn’t have it.”