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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us September 19, 2005 Case In Point: Poverty U.N. poverty report turns to United States Clearly the hurricane that swept the Gulf Coast crystallized in a matter of days a reality to which we Americans have seemingly grown immune: There exists in the U.S. an abiding inequality, one that is systemic, putting some areas of our country on the same page as many Third World countries. For all of our wealth, for all of our intentions to adhere to the principle that all persons are created equal, we have yet to solve the most pernicious and debilitating problems of poverty and inequality within our own borders. We need not look to the barrios of Latin America to find people whose lives are lived on a precipice. Evidence of this failure was made clear with the recent release of the 2005 United Nations “Human Development Report.” It is an annual document that normally concerns itself with development in the Third World. However, this report unexpectedly takes a look at America as well, pointing out that parts of the United States are as poor as any of those countries that we think of as Third World. In America, individuals under 65 earning less than $9,800 a year are considered to be poor. There are more than 37 million people in the U.S. who live in poverty. We need look no further than our children to have this point brought home. Child poverty is one of the most sensitive and significant indicators of how well a country is doing in its attempt to address the issues of inequality and poverty. Among 21 affluent nations, America has the highest percentage of poor children. The U.S., along with Mexico, has seen child poverty increase. It is estimated that one in four children in the U.S. lives in poverty. One in seven children will never graduate from high school. For half a century the U.S. has experienced a decline in infant mortality. But since 2000 that trend has been reversed. Our infant mortality has been rising in the U.S. for the past five years and is now the same as Malaysia, which has a quarter of America’s income. America’s black children are twice as likely as white children to die before their first birthday. Though we lead the world in health care spending, it is health care that is dispersed disproportionally, hence the disparities in infant deaths among whites and people of color. The paradox is that though America spends lavishly on new medical technology and treatment, because of inequalities in access, countries that spend significantly less have, on average, healthier populations. Black mothers are twice as likely to give birth to low birthweight babies as white mothers. A baby boy from one of the top 5 percent richest families in America will live 25 percent longer than a boy born in the bottom 5 percent. One in 146 children will die before his or her first birthday. The U.S. is the only wealthy country to have no universal health care system. Hence, one in three families living below the poverty line are uninsured. Being born into an uninsured household increases the probability of dying before the age of one by 50 percent. If the gap between black and white Americans were eliminated, it would save nearly 85,000 lives a year. If we would begin to solve the Gordian knot of poverty, then let us begin with the children of poverty, those whose frightened eyes stared out at us in the aftermath of Katrina, as chaos and devastation swirled around them. Let us make it our national crusade to not only rebuild the Gulf Coast, but to begin the process of rescuing our children. Having now seen what poverty and inequality has wrought, can we send them back to their previous lives and then look away? We can’t. So what can we do? Part II of Case In Point’s analysis of the U.N.’s “Human Development Report” will be next Monday. Case in Point is a weekly editorial column designed to provide in-depth commentary on current events. Responses should be less than 250 words and sent to [email protected] Letters to the Editor and Guest Forums should be e-mailed in text-only format to [email protected]. Please include your address and a daytime phone number where you can be reached for confirmation. Submissions cannot have run in any other publication. Letters are limited to 250 words, Guest Forums are limited to 600 words, and may be edited for length, content and clarity. 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