Poor Families

ONE OF the crueler ironies in the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots has been the suggestion, particularly on the part of conservatives, that the real cause of the violence was not racism or poverty but crumbling inner-city families.The inner-city family has fallen apart, the argument goes, and thus an entire generation of young people has come of age without proper "values." It's all the fault of the liberal social welfare policies of the 1960s, President Bush said recently.That's a neat formula for evading the responsibility three successive GOP administrations bear for the neglect of America's cities.

Here's what Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, said three years ago as the nation's gap between rich and poor widened toward historic levels: "I think it's a very bad development. It's creating two societies. And it's based very much, I think, on educational differences. … It leads to an unequal society, and a society which doesn't have the cohesion that we'd like to see. " As college students complete final exams and the 2013 commencement season arrives, a look at the higher education landscape suggests that the nation still has a long way to go in closing the education gap at the root of the income gap - what we should call the opportunity gap. "Socioeconomic diversity" on campus remains elusive.

After years of getting it wrong -- clustering low-income housing units in ways that segregated poor families from the rest of society -- the Department of Housing and Urban Development has come up with a program that gets it right. Move to Opportunity nudges federal housing policy toward common sense, steering Section 8 rental subsidies away from neighborhoods that already have high percentages of impoverished residents, and toward areas that can easily absorb less affluent families with no risk to stability or property values.

As long ago as 1776, the economist Adam Smith made an observation that explains the rise of youth gangs. He noted that in addition to the direct cost of educating young people by supplying teachers, books, schoolhouses and so on, there is a large indirect cost also: Children must be fed, clothed and housed while they are in school and not earning a wage. For adolescents, this cost is quite large; teenagers eat a lot and take up a lot of space, and they forgo significant income by enrolling in school rather than working.

Over the years, federal housing policies have had a decidedly mixed record. To its credit, the federal government created mortgage programs that put homeownership within reach of many middle class families. On the other hand, it was also federal dollars that clustered poor families together in high-rise slums in which a host of social pathologies can thrive. After years of gridlock on housing issues, Congress and the Clinton administration are now undertaking some long-overdue reforms and innovations.

MAMA WOULDN'T take welfare.She did go downtown to apply after Daddy died in 1967, leaving her with five sons to finish raising. But the welfare people asked too many questions. So she came home. Mama didn't like strangers prying into her business.We made do on the widow's pension from Social Security that Daddy had earned and Mama went back to work, as a domestic. I know that was difficult. Daddy was old-fashioned. His wife worked at home -- washing, ironing, sewing, cooking. That was her job for 22 years.

Here's what Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, said three years ago as the nation's gap between rich and poor widened toward historic levels: "I think it's a very bad development. It's creating two societies. And it's based very much, I think, on educational differences. … It leads to an unequal society, and a society which doesn't have the cohesion that we'd like to see. " As college students complete final exams and the 2013 commencement season arrives, a look at the higher education landscape suggests that the nation still has a long way to go in closing the education gap at the root of the income gap - what we should call the opportunity gap. "Socioeconomic diversity" on campus remains elusive.

A Knight-Ridder News Service graphic published in The Sun yesterday misstated a national child-poverty statistic. In 1989, 4.9 million of 12 million poor children, or about 2 in 5, lived in families with incomes below half the poverty line.The Sun regrets the errors.WASHINGTON -- Contrary to stereotype, only 1 in 10 poor American children is urban, black and living with a mother on welfare, according to a groundbreaking report on child poverty to be released today.Instead, rising numbers of the 12 million poor children in the United States are more likely to be Hispanic or children living in the suburbs, says James D. Weill of the Children's Defense Fund, which published the study.

When it comes to America's disadvantaged, stereotypes are deceiving. The latest shocking revelations come from a report by the Children's Defense Fund which found that one in five American children is poor. That's not just urban America crying out of the statistics, either.In analyzing 1989 census reports, the fund found that the inner-city black child of a mother on welfare simply is not the typical poor child. Only one in 10 of this country's poor children is urban and black; the fastest-growing poverty problem is in the suburbs, where a fourth of all poor children live.

POOR FAMILIES struggling to move from welfare to work are being rewarded now with a stealth attack on the very federal programs they need to escape the cycle of poverty. From school lunch programs to rental housing assistance to the earned-income tax credit, the Bush administration has launched a broad-scale crackdown. An almost punitive tone shows up in higher eligibility requirements, less generous ways of financing various programs and a selective hunt for fraud among the poor. Money for child care provided in legislation reauthorizing the welfare reform law falls short of what is needed by working poor families whose grip on a job depends on it. A House-passed version of the bill increases work requirements and thus child care costs for the states by $8 billion to $11 billion - but provides no new funding.

Every presidential candidate wants to be a good friend to the middle class. As for the rich - well, they'll always be taken care of, one way or another. But as the campaign for the White House moves into high gear, is anyone looking out for the interests of the poor? More than 10 percent of American families - about 37 million people - live at or below the poverty line. For decades, more than 40 percent of the poor have been children. Throughout the years, the percentage of poor families with children has varied widely.

Robert Hill Hartman, an ordained Methodist minister and former chairman of the department of philosophy and religious studies at Western Maryland College, now McDaniel College, died Sunday of pneumonia at Carroll Hospital Center. The Westminster resident was 76. Dr. Hartman was born in Berwick, Pa., the son and grandson of Methodist ministers. He grew up in Pennsylvania and Ohio. In 1953, he earned a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College, and in 1956, a bachelor's degree in theology from Boston University School of Theology.

Carroll County will pay $30,000 to make sure low-income families have affordable day care for the next several months. The county commissioners voted yesterday to fund the "purchase of care" vouchers through June. The money will allow the Carroll County Family Center to continue to offer childcare to the working poor at a reduced cost. State grant money for the five-year-old program will run out at the end of this month and has yet to be renewed. Absent the commissioners' contribution, many parents of infants and toddlers would have no child-care options and might have to resign from their jobs.

Carroll County will pay $30,000 to make sure low-income families have affordable day care for the next several months. The county commissioners voted yesterday to fund the "purchase of care" vouchers through June. The money will allow the Carroll County Family Center to continue to offer child care to the working poor at a reduced cost. State grant money for the five-year-old program will run out at the end of this month and has yet to be renewed. Absent the commissioners' contribution, many parents of infants and toddlers would have no child-care options and might have to resign their jobs.

A group of Oakland Mills Middle School pupils is doing its part to end world hunger by hitting the books. Through the Read to Feed program, they are soliciting pledges for reading a certain number of books. The money is used to purchase animals such as heifers, goats, chickens and water buffalo for poor families around the world. Read to Feed is sponsored by Heifer International, a nonprofit organization based in Little Rock, Ark., that aims to help poor families with long-term solutions to their problems.

I'D LIKE TO take this opportunity to thank President Bush for the $1.5 billion he is planning to spend to save my marriage. It might take every penny. The proposal is stuck in Congress at the moment, so I'm saving receipts until my -- our -- check comes in the mail. I look at it like a tax refund -- money from the government that you have already earned. My husband and I have done our part, so we figure we have a healthy check coming. We have stayed married for 20 years so our children could be raised with all the benefits of a two-parent family.

This is an excerpt of a Minneapolis Star-Tribune editorial, which was published Jan. 4. EVER since governors began creating "widows' pensions" in the 19th century, Americans have struggled between two views of public assistance for needy families. One sees welfare as a compassionate, even essential, lifeline to families who fall on hard times. The other says that welfare winds up rewarding the irresponsible and entrapping the indolent. The latter view gained favor in America during the early 1990s -- in part because the nation's welfare rolls were rising sharply, and in part because Americans had grown skeptical of government antipoverty efforts.

A group of Oakland Mills Middle School pupils is doing its part to end world hunger by hitting the books. Through the Read to Feed program, they are soliciting pledges for reading a certain number of books. The money is used to purchase animals such as heifers, goats, chickens and water buffalo for poor families around the world. Read to Feed is sponsored by Heifer International, a nonprofit organization based in Little Rock, Ark., that aims to help poor families with long-term solutions to their problems.

POOR FAMILIES struggling to move from welfare to work are being rewarded now with a stealth attack on the very federal programs they need to escape the cycle of poverty. From school lunch programs to rental housing assistance to the earned-income tax credit, the Bush administration has launched a broad-scale crackdown. An almost punitive tone shows up in higher eligibility requirements, less generous ways of financing various programs and a selective hunt for fraud among the poor. Money for child care provided in legislation reauthorizing the welfare reform law falls short of what is needed by working poor families whose grip on a job depends on it. A House-passed version of the bill increases work requirements and thus child care costs for the states by $8 billion to $11 billion - but provides no new funding.

An unusual Howard County government program has helped 22 poor working families escape the financial trap of living in expensive older motels after losing their homes - but it has been a more complicated job than expected. "Initially, we were thinking it would take three or four months, but it has taken six months to a year" of often intensive one-on-one work to help the families, many of whom are beset by multiple credit, health and personal issues, said Scott Knox, the part-time case manager hired by Grassroots, the county's private, nonprofit homeless shelter.