Tag: poverty

Feeding the hungry when we need to fight hunger

This is welcome news, given the dire straits faced by food banks in the state. The problem is that even with a program like this supplementing the food collected and distributed by private groups is that it does not address the underlying problems that lead to food insecurity, hunger and poverty in the first place.

1. A loss of jobs in New Jersey and nationally

New Jersey lost 700 private-sector jobs in August, bringing the total number of job losses in the state to 14,600 for the year so far, according to data released by the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development two weeks ago.

“New Jersey’s employment picture continues to weaken, and with the ongoing crisis in the financial sector, we can expect more job losses in the near future,” said Philip Kirschner, president of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association.

This past July, the state’s unemployment rate rose to 5.9 percent, yet still remains below the national unemployment rate of 6.1 percent. Employment has gone down in the major sectors of the state’s private-sector economy, according to the report.

In the first eight months of 2008, the manufacturing sector lost 7,800 jobs, construction lost 3,100 and the service sector lost 3,800, according to the report. The only sectors, which experienced significant employment increases, were in the education and health services sector and the information sector, according to the data.

2. Unequal income growth

Economic growth in New Jersey over the past 20 years has not been broadly shared by the state’s residents because the wealthiest have seen their incomes rise at a much greater pace than anyone else. In other words, the income inequality gap in New Jersey continues to widen and in some respects at a faster rate than in most of the nation.

3. A minimum wage that has not kept up with inflation

When New Jersey raised its minimum wage to $6.15 in 2005 and $7.15 in 2006, the state took an important step in the right direction for hundreds of thousands of working families. But, despite this increase, the minimum wage has simply not kept up with the rising cost of living—especially given skyrocketing prices for food and energy. New Jersey depends on its front-line workers to drive the state’s economy and perform important functions for residents, yet they cannot make ends meet on today’s minimum wage.

The New Jersey Minimum Wage Advisory Commission recognized this problem in its December 2007 report on the adequacy of the state minimum wage. Had the Legislature adopted the Commission’s recommendation to raise the minimum wage to $8.25 an hour and establish automatic annual cost-of-living increases, New Jersey’s workers would have received much-needed relief as they struggle to support their families and build a future.

4. A frayed social safety net at the state and federal levels

5. A cost of living that is higher than low-wage workers can afford

Many families do not earn Self-Sufficiency Wages, particularly if they have recently entered (or re-entered) the workforce or live in high cost or low-wage areas. Such families cannot afford their housing and food and child care, much less other expenses and are forced to choose between basic needs.

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Busting stereotypes

You’ve heard it before, the one about how the poor are lazy, how they’d rather live on welfare, how we’ve encouraged a culture of dependency. That’s the stereotype and, as a report issued today by the Poverty Research Institute shows, it is rather far from the reality.

The report found that one in five New Jersey families suffers from what it calls “income adequacy,” meaning they fail to earn enough to cover normal expenses for the region in which they live.

Two of the key myth-busters in the report are that:

  • 85 percent of families living below the sufficiency level have at least one breadwinner
  • one in eight families that have one member working full-time and year-round are living below the sufficiency level

The report goes into significant detail, outlining how the sufficiency level is calculated and what the levels are by county, as well as offering policy prescriptions. It is worth reading — and heeding.

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The invisible poor

The research finds the neediest kids actually tend to live in the richest states.

This line from an editorial in today’s Record pretty much sums up how miserably we are failing the most needy in our society.

According to a story in The Record, a new study

low-income children in New Jersey are in poorer health, exercise less, read less, participate in fewer after-school clubs and teams, and live in more dangerous neighborhoods than most poor children in the country. They are also more likely to be overweight, have asthma, live in a single-parent household, have emotional and behavioral difficulties, and have parents who lack secure employment.

“The distance between the haves and the have-nots in New Jersey is very big,” said William O’Hare, the report’s co-author, a demographer and senior fellow at the philanthropic Annie E. Casey Foundation, which advocates for needy children and families. “There are a large number of kids who aren’t doing very well in the state and need the attention of New Jersey’s leaders.”

Very true — and underscored by this:

The neediest kids tend to live in the richest states, including New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts. O’Hare said the findings may reflect the fact that big Northeast cities are home to some of the most concentrated poverty in the country.

Southern states, which are disproportionately poor, ranked far better than many other states in the well-being of their low-income children. Poor children fared best in states such as Utah and North Dakota, perhaps, said O’Hare, because they have a greater sense of community.

This is unconscienable. As Peter Wise, the former director of the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, is fond of saying: We live in one of the richest states in the country. That we have such extreme pockets of poverty in places like the state capital is a moral travesty.

Obviously, the state can do more, but so can the feds. And wouldn’t it be nice if someone other than John Edwards talked about the issue seriously on the campaign trail?

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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