One In Four Young U.S. Children Living In Poverty, Study Finds 22SEP11 & Most States Experience Significant Rise In Levels Of 'Deep Poverty' 23SEP11

25% of young American children are living in poverty. Just over 15% of all Americans are living in poverty, the highest rate since the great depression and the highest rate among industrial nations. As a nation we should be outraged, disgusted and ashamed, but we aren't. This should be one of the main policy issues of the presidential candidates, but among the gop / tea-bagger candidates, it isn't. THEY are concerned about the perception of class warfare during this double dip recession, worried the electorate will realize that all their propaganda and manipulation and deception is to fulfill their obligations to the rich, to corporate America, to the military-industrial complex, those who own them through their campaign contributions and the promise of high dollar jobs after their political careers are over. They are waging class warfare on 98% of America, and we have to start fighting back before it is too late. 
Twenty-five percent of very young children in America are living in poverty, according to an analysis of Census data released Thursday.
The number of children under six living in poverty rose to 5.9 million in 2010 from 5.7 million in 2009, researchers from the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire found. The ranks of American children in poverty have swelled by 2.6 million since the recession began.
The dismal poverty rate among young children mirrors that of adults, who have been pushed into poverty in larger numbers by high joblessness and slow income growth. The Census Bureau announced last week that 46.2 million Americans were in poverty in 2010, the most since the agency started tracking poverty in the 1950s.
And as American parents struggle to land jobs amid a 9.1 percent unemployment rate, the jobs crisis has had an outsized effect on their children, according to the Economic Policy Institute. More than 18 percent of American children had at least one unemployed or underemployed parent, the organization found, compared with 9.1 percent in 2007, before the start of the recession.
Child poverty has been growing across the country over the last decade, the Annie E. Casey Foundation reported last month. Child poverty rate jumped in 38 states during the last 10 years, and about 43 percent of children live economically unstable households, according to the organization’s findings.
Children in the south have been hit the hardest by the economic downturn, according to the University of New Hampshire researchers. The South has the highest rate of child poverty at 24.2 percent. Mississippi had the highest rate of child poverty of all the states at 32.5 percent, the study found.
Very young children who grow up in poverty are likely to be affected later in life, according to the University of New Hampshire researchers.

"It is important to understand young child poverty specifically, as children who are poor before age 6 have been shown to experience educational deficits, and health problems, with effects that span the life course," the researchers said.
Elevated rates of child poverty could also have dire consequences for the country down the line. Child poverty is a “leading indicator” of the country’s future Patrick McCarthy, President and CEO of the Casey Foundation told The Huffington Post last month.
"Nearly all of the social problems that we worry about in this country are heavily correlated with child poverty," he said at the time.

Most States Experience Significant Rise In Levels Of 'Deep Poverty'

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/23/deep-poverty_n_977749.html
The closer one looks at the Census data on American poverty, the more discouraging it becomes.
It was already known that the national poverty rate climbed to 15.1 percent last year, the greatest percentage since 1993, and that the actual number of Americans living in poverty had hit 46.2 million, the highest number since the Census Bureau began measuring poverty in 1959.
It was known that the median household income fell more than 2 percent in 2010. And it was known that a million more children fell into poverty in 2010, bringing the total to about 15.7 million -- and that of all the children in America age six or younger, one in four now live in poverty.
The latest analysis of Census data, from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, further illustrates how widespread the problem of want in America has become. According to the CBPP, 39 states, plus the District of Columbia, have experienced significant rises in their levels of "deep poverty" in the past four years -- that is, people living on incomes that are less than half the poverty line.
No states saw a decline in their deep poverty rates.
The findings make clear how far-reaching the effects of the recession have been, and align with other studies that have shown deep poverty increasing in the U.S. over the past two decades. Nationwide, some 6.7 percent of Americans were living in deep poverty in 2010 -- the highest rate since the government started tracking this number in 1975. Nearly one in 10 children are counted in this category.
As the CBPP noted in an earlier blog post, one reason for the rise in deep poverty in recent years is that low-income families have access to fewer public resources than they used to. Skyrocketing unemployment and falling wages have also played a role.
The below graphic is by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities: