Education
Defeat poverty by investing early in our children
The surest way to break the cycle of poverty in D.C. is to start where it begins for so many in our city, at birth. We need to give our youngest and most vulnerable children the support and resources they need to thrive and have a bright future.
Photo by bixentro on Flickr.
As the mother of two young children, I can expound endlessly on why it is the morally right thing to do. But in this difficult economy, it also just makes practical and economic sense.
More than a quarter of children in the District live in families struggling in poverty, according to the latest Kids Count data reported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. By providing low-income children with access to quality, comprehensive early care and early education Research over the past two decades clearly shows that children's brains grow most rapidly between the ages of 0 and 3. In these earliest years, they form the vital brain connections that make later learning and development possible. In fact, if we miss this window to properly "wire the brain," no amount of remediation may make up the difference. (Click here to see an interactive brain map.)
It is devastating to think that if we don't reach children in time, they may be permanently impaired It's not just the child who pays the price.
Study after study proves that when children from low-income backgrounds have the benefit of high-quality early care and early education, they are much more likely to become productive members of society and less likely to become dependent on government assistance as adults. Investing early helps prevent a host of social troubles, from truancy to teenage pregnancy, high school dropouts to violent crime and everything in between.
In classic economic terms, there is also a multiplier effect that springs from the productive intervention in the development of our youngest citizens. Parents who are assured that their children are being well cared for are more productive at work and are less likely to call in sick. Early care and early education is also a source of good jobs with health benefits to thousands in our city, who in turn make it possible for parents to work or go back to school to find better jobs.
In fact, economists have found that investments in quality early care and early education promise a much greater return than other social programs. And just as the health care industry is turning toward more preventative measures to save costs in the long run, it makes sense that those invested in education reform should do the same by prioritizing early childhood development.
It's particularly heartbreaking to think that some children in our city are barely given a fighting chance to thrive. The Kids Count data also reveal that infant mortality is actually rising in the District. At 13.1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, it's nearly double the rate nationally If that isn't a wakeup call, I don't know what is. We need to speak up and act now for our youngest citizens. The future of our city depends on it.
HyeSook Chung is Executive Director of DC Action for Children. Cross-posted from Defeat Poverty DC.HyeSook Chung is Executive Director of DC Action for Children. 
Comments
@ggwash
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In other news: As expected, the sun rose this morning.
Do you have any concrete plans? Perhaps a program that showed results elsewhere? And can you also attached some dollar amount? And suggest some people that would pay the bill?
by Jasper on Aug 25, 2010 3:22 pm • link • report
The Obama administration is spending a bunch of money trying to extend the program in other cities.
by jcm on Aug 25, 2010 4:02 pm • link • report
Addressing questions sets the stage for helping children grow up healthy in every possible way. Are we (in DC) doing anything like this?
by Mike S. on Aug 25, 2010 4:22 pm • link • report
by IMGoph on Aug 25, 2010 4:59 pm • link • report
The government should be a better parent to these kids, or else who would take care of them?
by Cyclone3 on Aug 25, 2010 5:05 pm • link • report
Now let's please get back to "traffic circles that aren't really quite circular", etc., please.
by Turnip on Aug 25, 2010 8:33 pm • link • report
by Lance on Aug 25, 2010 9:46 pm • link • report
Turnip: Seriously, that comment was sociopathic.
by IMGoph on Aug 25, 2010 10:12 pm • link • report
As much as it's not poltically correct to say, in these cases should we not provide an abortion option.
also, study after study... please provide peer-reviewed references
by anon obviously on Aug 25, 2010 10:42 pm • link • report
The second part of that strategy was raising all kinds of taxes on the middle class through decades of taxflation (bracket creep) and increased spending.
We can have spirited and honest disagreements about the value of social programs, but it is undeniable that the $600 per child federal income tax deduction went a helluva lot farther in 1950 than it does today. And government tax policy rewarded middle class families for having children.
Back then, most working families of four paid next to no federal income tax, state income tax did not exist, and FICA had a $15 or $30 annual cap.
One right wing think tank crunched the numbers and said in 1948 or 1950, the median family of four paid only 2% of their income in taxes, a figure that rose to nearly 40% in the 1990's. I didn't believe them, and called out the author of the study. He had used some cheap tricks to come up with the 40% figure (doubling the worker's FICA contribution to include the employer's half), but the 2% number was correct. Working families paid next to nothing in taxes back then.
What we have seen with greater clarity over the past three or four decades is the result of a tax policy that rewarded the unmarried poor for having children, while making it more difficult for the middle class to have additional children. We paid the poor to have more babies, and they did so. We decreased the actual value of deductions for the middle class and raised taxes on them, and they have fewer babies.
The social programs may have had great benefits, but one cannot tout the positives without acknowledging the negatives.
The surest way to break the cycle of poverty is to reward those who can afford children for having them, while not providing incentives for those women who cannot afford to have them.
by Mike on Aug 26, 2010 11:33 am • link • report
I'm curious, did your right-wing "think" tank aparachik happen to tell you what the marginal rate on the top-bracket was back in 1948? Just curious? You should call him up, an suggest we go back to tax rate structure of that time. I'm sure he'd jump at that idea.
There's a reason the middle-class is (comparatively) getting
hammered, and it has nothing to do with single mothers living in the urban environment.
:)
by oboe on Aug 26, 2010 12:00 pm • link • report
Agreed. Though I often bridle at the assumption that the suburbs should get a pass on these issues. Poverty is a regional issue--no more so than, say, Metro funding. When DC takes on a disproportionate burden of services for the poor, two things happen: 1) it frees up funding from MD and VA; and 2) poor people tend to concentrate in DC.
This is the dynamic that's taken place over the last half century, as DC funds the lion's share of social services, successfully bringing poor folks out of poverty, who then move to the suburbs.
The only way this makes sense is if you start from the position that "the urban space is for poor people and the suburbs are for the middle-class." It's a recipe for urban decay.
by oboe on Aug 26, 2010 12:00 pm • link • report
The right wing apparatchik - as you call him - was Robert Rector of the (you guessed it) Heritage Foundation.
And one of the reasons I called him was to discuss why his piece conveniently neglected the fact that the marginal tax rate for those making over $100,000 a year was 91 or 93%. As you point out, he wasn't that willing to talk about that part of the equation.
But it was the Kennedy round of tax cuts that dropped that marginal rate to 70%, which led to a decade of prosperity and a big increase in federal revenue. Conservative Republicans have extrapolated that lesson to every economic scenario since than, with the top marginal tax rate dropping into the 30's. Some seem to think the government will be awash in tax dollars by dropping the rate to zero.
Rector and I went at it on his thesis, but the one part of it I agreed with was that FDR and Truman kept taxes down on working class American families and that is why they had such strong, emotional support from those families.
A family of four back then with a $4800 annual income (above average for 1948) would have half of that income shielded from income tax simply from personal exemptions.
My Dad used to say that the Dems were for the common people and the Republicans were for the rich, and he pointed to the 91% marginal tax rate. At tax time one year, he even called me his little $600 deduction.
In fact, to help stifle your curiosity, I even researched the 1948 and 1950 Labor Department median wage figures and made Xerox copies of them, along with the IRS Marginal Tax Rate figures for those years. I was going through some files this past month, looking for other papers, and found them.
I agree with you completely that right-wingers forget that high taxes on the wealthy and corporations subsidized baby-boomer families and kept taxes low. But lefties forget how inflation, bracket creep, and tax hikes brought all that to an end and led to what you call the middle class getting hammered.
Corporations have become multinational and aren't easily taxed anymore. And there aren't enough Warren Buffets, Theresa Heinz Kerrys, or A-Rods to pay what's needed to fund our government. Taxing the rich may be tempting and morally pleasing, but even if we went back to 91% (and added back all those loopholes0, it wouldn't come close to fulfilling the needs of Uncle Sam, yet alone the needs of state and local governments. So the middle class gets hammered.
by Mike on Aug 26, 2010 1:09 pm • link • report
If you want to lower the Federal burden, slash military by 2/3, and eliminate Medicare. Or raise taxes on the very wealthy.
While there aren't many Warren Buffets, 65% of all income in the US went to the top 1%. Even that is misleading since income doesn't even capture the extent of *wealth* inequality.
There's no reason to go back to 91%. You could certainly raise it significantly above the current rate of 35% and stay on the right side of the Laffer Curve. The claim that "there just aren't that many Americans in the top 1%" is just a sleight-of-hand to take advantage of folks' general innumeracy. If 100% of all income went to a single person, we certainly wouldn't argue that that National Overlord shouldn't be taxed, since he's only one person in a country of 300 million.
by oboe on Aug 26, 2010 1:35 pm • link • report
We seem to agree - or pretty much agree - on most everything.
And I do favor some increase above the current marginal rate as well as raising the cap on FICA taxes (as well as the cap on FICA benefits for political reasons).
But I do want to point out that people, labor, capital, and manufacturing capacity are far more transportable than they were in 1950. Those who alter our tax laws should take care not to raise the to the extent that wealthy people, businesses, and capital flee our shores.
And, to get back to my original point: the best way to lower the poverty rate among children is to have more children born into families that are not in poverty. You accomplish that by tax policies that do not raise taxes on middle class families while handing out subsidies to the poor. If you raise taxes on the middle class, they'll have fewer kids.
Thanks. Good discussion.
by Mike on Aug 26, 2010 3:10 pm • link • report
Just one comment on the portability issue: the US has one of the lowest tax rates in the developed world for the super-rich. There's really no reason to continue trying to compete with certain third-world countries for tax-haven status.
I'm not a tax-lawyer, but I have heard that US citizens pay US income taxes on any income, regardless of where earned, and regardless of where they live. They can renounce US citizenship, but even then, I think they're required to pay US income tax for a significant period of time.
So I have the impression (admittedly semi-informed) that "opting out" of the system is not so easy. And finally, I'd be willing to bet that far more of the uber-wealthy would prefer to live in the US, regardless of tax rate. You've got to spend that money somewhere. May as well be Manhattan, or Aspen, etc... So I think the threat of that particular variation on "going Galt" is somewhat empty. :)
by oboe on Aug 26, 2010 3:36 pm • link • report
We are faced with at risk children who can be viewed by us as worth over $500,000 in positive expectations after a $10,000 investment --- But much less without timely literacy and order exposure, due care and follow on attention. In either case the $500,000 present value expectation does not exist without the $10,000 first things first gift or investment. We are wasteful when we do not invest and then work the system to reduce the risk in development of an economically stable person in spite of mom and dad. The lack of investment has the government spending money later in the silos of education and human services that would not be spent if the investment was made and nurtured timely. Our trick is to pay back the investment with the savings because it is easy and simple.
The "private sector" could be prepared to deliver 100% of the kids ready so the public school could change and cost reduce based on the added brain capacity starting school. The contract per child with mom and mentor for the child that is ready is already in the works; it just does not REQUIRE the early reading, counting and social skills AND costs twice as much as necessary. Reaching 100% of at risk children from the bottoms up would be a new industry supported by savings in the public sectors if we as effective citizens made it so. Without going this route the opportunity will not change enough at the bottom of the bottom half no matter what is done from the top down school and government systems. And, we have no choice but to positively change.
by Thomas on Aug 26, 2010 3:59 pm • link • report
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