Demand Congress address childhood hunger and poverty
Throughout the pandemic, Congress and the Biden Administration demonstrated how government can be a source for good, lifting up millions of children and families.
From the expanded Child Tax Credit to healthy school meals for all, together we dramatically reduced childhood hunger and poverty. But now, the Senate’s failure to act has meant needed help has run out just as rising prices have made things much harder for families. Hunger is rising. Women can’t return to work because child care is unaffordable or unavailable. We can’t give up now.
The second half of 2021, more than 61 million children in roughly 36 million families across the U.S. received a monthly Child Tax Credit payment of $250 or $300 per child.
Then because the Senate failed to act, the Child Tax Credit payments stopped in January, and 3.7 million children were plunged back into poverty.
These monthly payments also help alleviate the scourge of racial inequality in the U.S. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that 9.9 million children will fall back into poverty or deeper into poverty without an extension of the expanded CTC―and disproportionate poverty for Black, Latinx, and American Indian or Alaska Native (AIAN) children in particular will grow even worse.
We know that when children do not have nutritious meals, they are more likely to fall behind in school and experience more health problems. Now, as rising costs and supply shortages have hit school food programs, Congress needs to provide more funding so more high-poverty communities can provide free meals to all students. Of course, children need to eat when school is out, so Congress should create a nationwide Summer EBT program, providing debit cards for eligible families to help them purchase food when schools are closed.
Finally, we cannot fully invest in families if we don’t address the crisis in child care and early education.
The Biden administration and the House have proposed adding billions of dollars into federally supported child care and pre-k programs. This will help ensure child care doesn’t bankrupt families with low and moderate incomes, ensure child care workers are paid a fair wage of at least $15 an hour, and provide voluntary free pre-school for 3- and 4-year-olds.
Aside from difficulties finding quality child care spots, costs remain astronomical―exceeding $10,000 a year in many parts of the country. Under the President’s plan, the cost of child care would be capped at 7% of a family’s earnings for millions of working families.
The they-warned-us-and-we-didn’t-listen edition. For months, medical experts warned us that COVID-19 cases likely would spike in the winter. It is happening. 4,112 new COVID-19 deaths were reported in the U.S. on Thursday, January 7 alone – the first time deaths in a single day exceeded 4,000. The daily death toll in New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania also set records. Illinois became the fifth state to record its one millionth case since the pandemic began. In Arizona, which right now has a higher infection rate than any other state in the U.S., hospitalizations and deaths set records in the past few days; the state has seen more than 8,000 new cases a day, more than double the summer peak.
But, as a nation, are we paying attention? Are we listening to the experts? “Most Americans don’t want to know, don’t want to acknowledge, don’t want to recognize, and certainly – even as it is descending upon us – do not appear to understand the dire circumstances that we are facing,” Dr. Marjorie Bessel, Chief Clinical Officer at Arizona’s Banner Health, told The New York Times.
Before the last Congress adjourned, it passed, as part of a COVID-19 relief package, $69 billion to purchase and help states distribute vaccines. The funds also will help states with COVID-19 contact tracing, treatment, and mitigation. The funds include $2.5 billion targeted toward communities of color and rural communities – both hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic. When the new Administration is sworn in, scaling up the distribution and administration of the vaccines will be a priority in bringing the pandemic under control; to date, health officials have expressed disappointment at the pace of the vaccine roll-out.
255,728
The number of new COVID-19 cases confirmed in the U.S. on Wednesday, January 6 alone. That’s an 8 percent increase over two weeks ago. Tweet this.
240,000
The number of COVID-19 cases confirmed in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in just two weeks. That is more cases than at least 19 entire states have reported during the course of the pandemic. Tweet this.
Indigenous, Black, and Latinx Americans were at least 2.7 times more likely to have died from COVID-19 than white Americans, adjusted for age, in 2020. Tweet this.
1 in 800
By early December, COVID-19 had taken the lives of 1 in 800 Black and Indigenous peoplein the U.S. In Michigan and New Jersey, it was 1 in 470 Black lives lost; in Mississippi, it was 1 in 140 Indigenous lives lost.
71%
71 percent of Black Americans say they know someone who has been hospitalized or died from COVID-19, according to a Pew Research survey released in December.
60%
The percent of Americans who say they will get a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the same survey. 42 percent of Blacks say they will do so, compared with 83 percent of Asian Americans, 63 percent of Latinx, and 61 percent of whites.
29.6 million
The number of people in households that sometimes or often did not have enough to eat in the previous week, or 14 percent of all people in households. That was true of 24.5% of Blacks, 21% of Latinx, 10% of whites, and 7% of Asians – and 18% of adults in households with children. The numbers appeared to reflect a sharp increase from a previous reporting period in November.
89.7 million
The number of people whose household found it somewhat or very difficult to meet usual expenses during the previous week, or 37.5 percent. That was true of 55% of Blacks, 51% of Latinx, 32% of Asians, and 31% of whites – and 45% of all adults living with children.
