The two main reasons for homelessness are poverty and the lack of affordable housing.
Untied States Statistics
- 61% of Americans “always or usually” live paycheck to paycheck. (5)
- 66% of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans (5)
- There is a 32% increase in American’s filing for personal bankruptcy from 2008 (5)
- It takes more than 35 weeks (as the average time) to find a job (5)
- Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose 16% in 2009
- More than 40% of employed Americans are working in service sector jobs which are generally low paying positions. (5)
- In 2009, 50.2 Americans lived in food insecure households (6)
- In 2009, 4.8% of Americans households accessed emergency food pantries (6)
Some interesting results of studies
- It takes several years post-recession for employment to rebound and families to return to pre-recession income levels. (1)
- Low-income families have historically taken longer to rebound than families with higher pre-recession incomes. (1)
- When poverty affects a significant portion of the population, these effects can extend to the society at large and produce slower rates of growth. (4)
- Public programs play a pivotal role in blunting the negative impacts of a recession. (1)
- Relatively modest increases in incomes for poor families with young children can make a measurable difference in their children’s earnings in adulthood. Increasing family income by $3,000 a year when children are younger than five is associated with a 17 percent increase in the child’s later earnings, and an increase in 152 hours of work per year, according to a study that tracked young children over decades to see what their earnings were at age 25. (2)
- Poverty can negatively affect economic growth by affecting the accumulation of human capital and rates of crime and social unrest. (4)
- Higher levels of unemployment are associated with higher levels of property crime. (4)
- Low wages or unemployment makes crime more attractive, even with the risks of arrest and incarceration, because of lower returns to an individual through legal activities (4)
- Peer influence and neighborhood effects may also lead to increased criminal behavior by residents. Having many peers that engage in negative behavior may reduce social stigma surrounding that behavior. (4)
Consequences on Health
- Children who were in poverty prior to a recession and children who fell into poverty during a recession had significantly poorer health outcomes than children who never experienced poverty. (1)
- Although approximately 90 percent of all children are insured, the ten percent who are not represent 7.3 million children – 65 percent of whom are eligible for but not enrolled in public health insurance programs. (1)
- Access to health insurance is not synonymous with access to health care, and does not automatically translate to the receipt of quality health care services. Although children with health insurance receive more consistent care and have better health outcomes than children who lack coverage, health insurance is only one of many determinants of children’s health outcomes. (1)
- Poor children are more likely to be overweight because their families cannot afford more nutritious food and instead resort to cheaper, less nutritious food. (2)
- Low birth weight is in general also more prevalent in counties with high child poverty, another factor associated with health problems. (2)
- Lower-income individuals experience higher rates of chronic illness, disease, and disabilities, and also die younger than those who have higher incomes. (4)
Food
- Given the rapid pace of brain development during childhood, even brief periods of food insecurity may have lifelong implications. (1)
- The number of children living in food insecure households went from 16 percent in 2007 to 21 percent in 2008. (1)
- Improved nutrition can lead to greater grade attainment, reading comprehension, cognitive abilities, and ultimately wages later in life. (3)
Child Abuse
- Long-term consequences of abuse and neglect may include mental health disorders, low educational attainment, welfare receipt, and drug and alcohol problems. (1)
- Children who are maltreated are also more likely to have greater physical health problems, functional disabilities, and health risk behaviors as adults. (1)
Education
- Frequent moves may mean frequent changes in school, which have been linked with poorer academic performance and lower educational attainment. (1)
- Children who experience numerous moves are less likely to graduate from high school than children who move less frequently. (1)
- Communities where child poverty is high are also likely to have lower rates of high school graduation than their state’s average. (2)
- Hungry children suffer from hyperactivity, absenteeism, and generally do worse both socially and academically in school. (2)
- The more time children are poor in childhood, the more likely they are to fail to graduate from high school or to have a teen non-marital birth. (2)
- Children who are persistently poor are much less likely as adults to be consistently employed. (2)
- Unemployment and income losses can reduce educational achievement by threatening early childhood nutrition; reducing families’ abilities to provide a supportive learning environment (including adequate health care, summer activities, and stable housing); and by forcing a delay or abandonment of college plans. (3)
Works Cited
1. The Effect of Recession on Child Well-Being: A Synthesis of the Evidence by PolicyLab, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
2. The Recession Generation: Preventing Long Term Damage from Child Poverty and Young Adult Joblessness July 2010 by Coalition on Human Needs
3. Economic scarring: The long-term impacts of the recession by John S. Irons September 30, 2009
4. POVERTY IN AMERICA Economic Research Shows Adverse Impacts on Health Status and Other Social Conditions as well as the Economic Growth Rate United States Government Accountability Office
5. Recession, by Michael Snyder, 2010
6. Feeding America Hunger and Poverty Statistics