| LIFE-NET NEWS |
| by Ret Z. |
| Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices |
| 2005 June 15 | No Profit; No Proceeds |
| Volume 9 Number 4 | All-Volunteer |
| "Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal; give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life." |
| The Real Cost of Living in New Jersey |
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It actually takes two to three times the official poverty threshold to get by in New Jersey, says a report released yesterday. The Real Cost of Living in 2005: The Self-Sufficiency Standard for New Jersey details income requirements in all 21 counties. Its sponsors and author say it shows that the federal poverty standard is an inadequate measure of how much money it takes to get by in
the state.
The report says Atlantic County is the least expensive county to live in and Somerset the most expensive. A single parent with one child would need to make $2,290 a month to get by in Atlantic County, compared with $3,455 in Somerset County. The report's author, Diana Pearce of the University of Washington, said the federal poverty threshold of $16,090 for a family of three was the same in every state except for Hawaii and Alaska. But that income, she said, is not nearly sufficient to cover basic needs in many states, including New Jersey. To make it out of poverty, a single parent with one preschooler and one school-age child in Mercer County must earn a minimum of $46,551 a year without government or other financial support. Counties in which the same three-member household would need to make more than twice the $16,090 federal threshold to escape poverty include Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Ocean, and Salem. To live above poverty in Essex County, a family of four (two working parents with two children) must earn a minimum of $44,736 a year. That means each parent must make at least $10.59 an hour or $3,728 monthly to cover such costs as $1,021 for child care and $944 for housing. In Somerset County, the figure is $62,474. A single adult could live on $19,350 a year ($372 a week) or less in the state. But this could be done only in Essex, Mercer, Atlantic, or Camden counties. Three-quarters of the state's job growth until 2012 will likely come from jobs that pay $25,000-$39,000 a year. At the same time, the number of jobs that pay $40,000-$59,000 is expected to decline. Pearce's reports, which she has done in more than 30 other states, examine the costs of only the most basic needs: housing, transportation, medical care, taxes, child care, and groceries. Entertainment, vacations, savings, and money for education are not included. Other states have used Pearce's reports to determine eligibility for job training and to help determine fair wages for companies moving in under economic-development programs. Advocacy-group leaders here said they wanted New Jersey leaders to read the report and consider it as they budget for transitional housing, jobs and transportation programs. This is the third report to have been released, said Mark Murphy, president of the Fund for New Jersey, which paid for the study, yet decision-makers in Trenton have not yet used any of them to guide public policy decisions. "We can't explain why someone who has income ... ends up getting evicted," said Pearce. "The measure's wrong, not the person." Source: Associated Press Source: Newark Star-Ledger |
| US 'Uncivilized' on Child Poverty |
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The child poverty rate in the US has steadily risen every year from 2000, according to several recent reports and press releases from public policy institutes and government agencies. Child Poverty in Rich Countries, 2005, a report by the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, comparatively assesses conditions facing poor children in industrialized nations, primarily in Europe but also including the US.
The study begins with this assertion: "Protecting children from the sharpest edges of poverty during their years of growth and formation is both the mark of a civilized society and a means of addressing some of the evident problems that affect the quality of life in the economically developed nations." By this standard, the US has the dishonor of being one of the most uncivilized of the major industrialized countries. While Denmark and Finland led the 26 participating OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries with child poverty rates below 3% last year, Mexico and the US were at the other end of the spectrum, both with child poverty rates of more than 20%. The current rate for the US, 21.9%, is greater than the still comparatively high figure of 17% reported by the US Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. The discrepancy is due to qualitative differences in definitions and measures of poverty. The UNICEF report notes that the US, in compiling federal data on the poor, has generally favored an "absolute" poverty line defined as a level of consumption, "the ability to purchase a defined quantity of goods and services." Most other OECD members, on the other hand, generally draw poverty lines based upon median national incomes, or the relative wealth and lifestyles of their communities. A child is considered poor by this measure if the income available to that child is less than half of the median income available to a child in a given country. It is the preferred definition of poverty by public aid programs and the measure used by UNICEF. By the absolute measurement, child poverty in the US is lower today than a decade ago. However, from 2001 to 2002, a significant rise occurred that placed nearly half a million more children in poverty. From 2002 to 2003, the rate increased again, from 16.7% to 17.6%, even during what has been characterized as a period of economic recovery following recession. More significantly, children living in extreme poverty, or less than half of the poverty line, grew in number by 11.5% in 2002, signaling the collapse of social protective measures for the nation’s poorest citizens. The 1990s, a period often characterized as an economic boom for the middle class, was a wringer for America’s poor, particularly insofar as it set the stage for elimination of New Deal-era social programs, starting with welfare. The 1996 bi-partisan welfare reform bill forced millions of welfare recipients off of benefits and into low-wage employment with no health benefits. There has been no economic recovery to speak of for the majority of families with children in the past decade. Source: UNICEF |
| Transportation Takes Bigger Bite of Household Budgets |
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In the early 1960s, American families spent roughly $1 out of every $10 on transportation. By 2003, a study released yesterday by a Washington-based mass transit advocacy group
concludes, those costs were consuming nearly $1 out of every $5. And that was before the recent run-up in the cost of gasoline, noted the authors of the study, the Surface Transportation Policy Project.
"It doesn't surprise me," said John Pucher, a professor of public policy at Rutgers in New Brunswick, who specializes in transportation issues. "Car ownership per capita has doubled, plus we're driving many more miles." "It does alarm me," Pucher said, noting that poorer families are forced to spend more of their income on transportation. "When you look at poor families, with one or two cars, we're talking about a lot of money," Pucher said. "And as we know in New Jersey, it's not easy to get to jobs without a car." The good news, according to the report, is that the Philadelphia region, which includes South Jersey, is faring better than most parts of the US. Nationally the average amount of household income spent on transportation in 2003 was 19.1%; in the Philadelphia area, just under 15.9%. The study's authors attributed the Philadelphia area's standing mainly to its mass transit system. Unfortunately for South Jersey residents, that system is based principally in the city and its Pennsylvania suburbs. Source: Courier-Post |
| Finance Ministers Make Near-Record Debt Relief Deal |
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It's one of the biggest write-offs of debt ever. And it could spark major improvements in the lives of the world's poorest people. Last weekend's $40-billion debt cancellation agreed to by rich-nation finance ministers will, for instance, enable Zambia to hire 7,000 new teachers. Likewise, Tanzania will no longer spend 12% of its budget on debt service. Instead, it could build new hospitals and roads.
In all, 18 nations -- 14 of them in Africa -- with 296 million people will be debt-free. Eventually, a total of 38 nations with 552 million people may get full debt relief. For all the impressive figures, though, the deal strikes a middle ground. For some it's too small: At most, it cancels less than one-sixth of Africa's $295 billion debt. It leaves out crucial countries like Nigeria. For others, it's too risky: By erasing bad debts -- and allowing struggling nations to apply for new loans -- it could spark a new cycle of dependency. Either way, it does provide a respite from poverty's pressures. And it may help countries lift themselves up through better education, stronger agriculture, and expanded trade. One of the dangers, experts say, is that rich nations won't fully replenish global lenders' coffers, which could trim the size of future loans. In theory, however, poor countries won't need to borrow so much, because the debt deal will boost their economies. As for the poor nations, the deal is expected to save them a total of about $1.5 billion in debt payments each year. They're supposed to spend this on education, healthcare, agriculture, and infrastructure. According to the CIA World Factbook, the 18 governments' total spending was $23.5 billion in 2004. So the $1.5 billion represents a sizable, though not enormous, amount of freed-up cash. Source: Christian Science Monitor |
| Charities See More Donations Online |
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Online donations to the USA's biggest charities surged 63% last year from 2003, a new study says, as the tsunami relief effort and Howard Dean's presidential campaign underscored the value of Internet fundraising. The 164 groups surveyed by the Chronicle of Philanthropy included Doctors Without Borders USA, which helped victims of the December tidal wave that devastated Asian nations, and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
The groups raised a combined $166.2 million online, the trade journal said. That was less than 1% of the total raised by most of the charities. But Chronicle editor Stacy Palmer says the big growth from 2003 will spur more online fundraising this year as donors grow more comfortable with e-charity. She says, "We really seem at a stage where growth is happening in a fairly spectacular way." Some of the rise might have been driven by strong donor reaction to media coverage of the tsunami, says Jeff Patrick, president of Common Knowledge, a tech consultant to charities. Without another high-profile disaster, he says, growth this year might ease. Non-profits have been slow to adopt more robust Web sites and other tech tools that could speed fundraising. They fear spending precious dollars on tech that won't deliver promised benefits, Palmer says. That is changing as tech proves its value. Source: USA Today |
| In Africa, an Anti-AIDS Boom |
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Bobwalla is a black woman born in Cape Town and raised under apartheid. She lived in a shack with her husband, who drank and beat her for the first nine years of their marriage. Then she tested positive for HIV. She cried for days, sure she would die.
But she was lucky enough to find a clinic that could give her antiretroviral drugs (ARVs). She persuaded her husband, also HIV-positive, to get treatment. He stopped drinking as part of the treatment; he's stopped abusing her and sleeping around. Now she counsels pregnant women on how not to pass HIV on to their babies. "For some, HIV brings death," she says. "For me, HIV brought life into my home." You come to southern Africa to visit AIDS hospitals, and you expect to find unrelieved sadness. But something positive has happened recently due to three factors:
You can imagine what this has done for the morale of the health workers and how it has helped them get more people tested for HIV. A positive test no longer means certain death. Something can be done. Obviously there's a long way to go. You can still go out and visit children in mud huts who are raising themselves because their parents, aunts and uncles are all dead. Only a small fraction of those who need treatment are getting it. But there's something akin to Silicon Valley in the early 1990s. All these little treatment facilities are trying to get really big really fast. Thanks in part to American money, they're building new wings and desperately scrounging for qualified staff. We should be redoubling our efforts out of a sense of opportunity. We have now a world of people trying everything. Many doctors, having come from other lands, are backed by money from the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and finally doing the work they've always dreamed of doing. We could be on the verge of a recovery boom. Source: New York Times |
| # LNN # Small # Hauls # |
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| Life-Net News Extras |
| Behind Every Homeless Person |
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By John Fischer:
Behind every homeless person is a story that shows how close we all are to each other. The difference between the person on the street and the one who drives by in the back seat of a limo can be a few short missteps, a thin line of privilege, or a blown opportunity. Life is fragile, as are the means by which we position ourselves in society, and by which we seek an illusive security. A reader wrote me recently about an experience she had reading a book in the park. A homeless man passed by on his bike, circled back when he saw what she was reading, and proceeded to produce the same book out of his traveling store of earthly possessions. Ironically, the book was The Street Lawyer, by John Grisham, about a homeless man who takes a law firm hostage for retribution. In the process of talking to him, she learned the man was once a doctor. He started turning to alcohol and then drugs to deal with the pain he felt daily watching so many children die after he tried so hard to save them. One day, he was smoking dope and left the house with something still lit. When he returned, his house was burned to the ground including his wife and child who had been asleep inside. His life went completely downhill after that. Who would have thought a homeless person could tell such a story? And yet how many more stories are there like this -- people whose lives pivoted downhill, not overnight, but on a series of small, bad choices, one after the other? We are all much closer to helplessness than we think. Change the picture ever so slightly and we change places with those who are the most at risk in society, perhaps because we are all at risk to some degree. It’s just a matter of degree. Perhaps if we saw more of our similarities instead of so much of our differences, we would be more compassionate and more helpful to those around us who have lost a sense of purpose in life. Source: Sharing Spirit |
| I Found a Penny Today |
I found a penny todaySource: Unknown |
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