Michigan's Poor Children Face An Uphill Battle
MUSKEGON -- Michigan's poor are having an increasingly hard time
making ends meet, according to a recently completed study, and
numerous social service organizations throughout the state.
According to the 2003 Market Basket Survey (which measures the
buying power of the poor), cash assistance and food stamps,
which make up all the poor receive, covers only 5 percent of the
income needed to pay for food, clothing and housing. One year
ago, Public Assistance provided 60 percent.
"That's a very dramatic drop, one I haven't seen in the seven or
eight years that we've been doing this," stated Ellen
Speckman-Randall, executive director of the Michigan County
Social Services Association, which conducted the annual survey.
>From a Muskegon Chronicle article on the subject: "According to
the survey, a family of three would qualify for $9,830 a year in
government cash assistance, food stamps and a back-to-school
clothing allowance. That same family would spend an average of
$18,137 in rent, utilities, transportation, food and clothing."
Cash assistance grants have not increased for ten years under
conservative Republican Gov. John Engler. And now, with a new
governor, Jennifer Granholm, improvement is unlikely because of
the state's projected $1.7 billion deficit.
Child and Family Associates see an urgency in the public need
particularly for children. One reported suggestion is an added
one-cent tax on each can of beer, to generate $20 Million, with
the money to be used to increase the back-to-school clothing
allowance from $25 to $100 -- much more than just this is needed
to ensure the well being of poor children.
Michigan's Republican-controlled legislature cut the clothing
allowance from $75 to $25 to assist the Republican tax cuts for
the rich.
Another aspect to this plan was that lawmakers also trimmed back
eligibility, limiting it to school-age children, four years and
older on public assistance. Previously infants and toddlers were
eligible.
It has been noted that this past winter many children have been
going to school without coats, boots or hats!
Gov. Granholm is in many ways an improvement over our now former
Gov. John Engler, but she has yet to prove herself an advocate
for the poor -- particularly poor children.
On a wider scale, west Michigan social activist and advocate for
the poor, Father Jack LaGoe said: "A nation willing to put
itself into a debt of $400 billion a year for the foreseeable
future, asking only the poor and lower middle class to pay for
it, has lost its vision and any hope of peace." All articles are
? Copyleft 2003, the Michigan Socialist Articles may be
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