Children of Working Poor "Invisible" in Welfare Debate
By Judith Havemann
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 4, 1996; Page A01
Social scientists call the impoverished children of working parents the "invisible poor," and they say the nation's recent focus on getting welfare recipients off the rolls and into the work force is pushing such children even further into the background.
Yet they are a growing phenomenon, according to a new report indicating that more than one-third of the United States' 15 million impoverished children have at least one parent working full time at least 50 weeks a year. The same is true for about 87,000 children in Virginia -- 42 percent of all poor children in the state, according to a study of 1994 statistics released today by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. In Maryland, nearly one-third of poor children have at least one parent with a full-time job, as do 20 percent of the District's poor children.
In some ways, according to the private charity's Kids Count report, those children are worse off than welfare recipients because most have no health insurance. Many of them spend their days in low-quality child-care arrangements even though their parents spend an average of 21 percent of their incomes on child care.
The rapidly growing number of children in working poor families offers an important insight into the welfare debate, said Douglas W. Nelson, executive director of the Casey Foundation.
"The impulse to reform welfare by enhancing self-sufficiency through work and earnings is a sound one," Nelson said. "But at the same time, we have to make certain that working will actually enable families to meet the minimum needs of their children."
The 90-cent increase in the minimum wage being debated in Congress would help those children but still would leave many of them in poverty, according to Bill O'Hare, a demographer who is coordinator of Kids Count.
One full-time job at the current minimum wage of $4.25 an hour provides a family of three with 72 percent of the money needed to reach the federal poverty level of $11,800 in annual income. The increase proposed by the White House would raise that family to 87 percent of the poverty-line income.
Two parents working full time at the minimum wage can support two children above the federal poverty level. But the Casey Foundation's analysis tempers that statistic with two discouraging trends -- a nationwide increase in births to teenagers and an increase in the percentage of single-parent families. Half of all children in working poor families live in households with their married parents. The Baltimore-based foundation based its analysis on statistics from the Census Bureau, the FBI, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other government sources. Its Kids Count data book, in its seventh year, is prepared by foundation demographers.
The report revealed a reduction nationally in the infant mortality and child death rates from 1985 to 1993 -- decreases attributed to advances in medical technology. It also showed a higher rate of high school graduation during those years and a lower percentage of teenagers who were neither in school nor working.
However, five standard measures of child welfare worsened nationally in the years studied: The violent death rate among teenagers increased, as did the percentage of low birth-weight babies. A 23 percent increase in the teenage birth rate was mirrored by a similar increase in the percentage of families headed by a single parent. There also was an increase in the arrest rate for juveniles charged in violent crimes.
In the District, four standards of well-being showed drastic change in the years analyzed: The violent death rate among teenagers increased 773 percent; the teenage birth rate jumped 92 percent; the death rate among children ages 1 to 14 increased 78 percent; the rate of juvenile arrests in violent crimes jumped 54 percent.
In line with the national statistics, the District showed modest improvements in three of 10 categories: a lower infant mortality rate, a lower high school dropout rate and fewer teenagers who were neither attending school nor working.
Maryland improved in only two areas: infant mortality and the rate of child deaths. But the state had more low birth-weight babies, more teenage mothers, a higher rate of violent death among teenagers, a higher percentage of children being arrested in violent crimes, more school dropouts, more children in poverty and more children in families headed by single parents.
None of Maryland's measures changed as drastically as those in the District. The biggest change in Maryland was in the rate of violent deaths among teenagers, which jumped 23 percent.
Virginia posted improvements in five areas -- declines in the infant mortality rate, the child death rate, the teenage dropout rate, the percentage of teenagers not attending school or working and the percentage of children in poverty.
The number of low birth-weight babies increased slightly in Virginia, as did the violent death rate among teenagers. There were increases of about 10 percent in both the teenage birth rate and the number of children living in single-parent households. The rate of juvenile arrests in violent crimes jumped 62 percent.
© 1996 The Washington Post Co.
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