PD Editorial: California’s shame: 1 in 5 children are living in poverty

One out of every five children in Sonoma County lives in poverty. That reality exists before our very eyes, even if it remains unseen. Most of those children live in families with working adults. Without government supports, their situations would be even worse.

Child poverty rates vary widely across California. Looking at state Assembly, state Senate and congressional districts, the rates vary from 6.8% to 45%. Sonoma County's child poverty rate of 20% was slightly better than the statewide average of 21.3%.

These 2016 statistics are from the California Poverty Measure, which is a collaboration of the Public Policy Institute of California and the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality. These and other numbers, which Public Policy Institute has now published in a “Just the Facts” report on child poverty in California, illustrate that our children's economic welfare has not fully recovered from the Great Recession.

For Sonoma County, the study puts the poverty threshold as a household income of $31,860 for a family of four who rent housing.

These numbers are sobering but unsurprising. California is known as a global economic powerhouse but also a region of high housing costs and massive income inequality. In Santa Rosa and surrounding areas, civic leaders have been struggling to develop affordable housing and expand employment, especially in the aftermath of the devastating wildfires.

This new report should give greater urgency and public support to their efforts.

Poverty and near-poverty can mean that children and their families lack safe, consistent and healthy housing. That they lack transportation for work, medical appointments and school activities. That they are stressed about having adequate food, let alone whether it is healthy. That they feel looked down upon by society.

Poverty is intergenerational not because people are lazy, don't work hard or don't try, but because they are so focused each day on making ends meet that they don't have the time, resources and opportunities to pursue a better education or a better job. It's in all of our best interests to help families break that cycle, so children - and parents - can achieve a better life.

Even just navigating the societal supports that are available can be time-consuming and difficult. Yet without those safety nets, the number of California children in poverty would increase nearly 14%, according the Public Policy Institute report.

Existing state and federal programs do a lot. CalFresh provides food assistance. The federal and state earned income tax credits and the federal child tax credit help finances. CalWORKs offers cash assistance for families with children. Housing subsidies; school breakfasts; the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children; and others help.

But they aren't enough.

Again, it's not that families are sitting around, doing nothing so they can live off the rest of us. More than 85% of children in poverty lived in families with at least one working adult.

Quantifying the challenge and seeing what is working is the necessary first step. Now California must prioritize building upon that information so that the next time someone sees five children playing in Sonoma County, there isn't a high probability one lives in poverty.

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