FatLip » the kids

KY Youth Advocates releases 2010 County Data Book

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:06:59 +0000

Earlier today, Kentucky Youth Advocates released their 20th annual “Kids Count” County Data Book. This year, the report, which measures and tracks the socioeconomic well-being of children across Kentucky’s 120 counties, factors in the impact of the economic recession. As you can probably imagine, the results aren’t pretty.

Here’s a taste from a press release:

Eight of the book’s ten indicators measuring children’s receipt of work supports showed an increase in participation since 2000, including the following:

Between 2000 and 2009 the number of children receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps) benefits increased by 56 percent (over 100,000 children).

Participation in the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) increased by 24 percent (over 20,000 children) between 2000 and 2009.

The percent of children attending public schools eligible for free or reduced-price meals increased from 48 percent to 52 percent between the 1999-2000 and 2009-2010 school years.

In 2009, an average of 60,778 children were enrolled in the Kentucky Children’s Health Insurance Program (KCHIP) each month, up 35 percent from 2000.

Medicaid enrollment grew by 47 percent (over 123,000 children) from 2000 to 2009.

The number of children receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits grew by 31 percent (over 6,900 children) between December 2000 and December 2008.

Despite these increases in receipt of benefits, many children and families in Kentucky are still missing out on work supports they are eligible for due to barriers such as lack of information and a confusing and laborious application process. For instance, estimates suggest that between 15 and 25 percent of Kentuckians eligible for the EITC do not claim it when they file their taxes. And while Kentucky’s participation in SNAP is high, a 2009 study of food bank users found that almost half do not receive SNAP. In addition, only 58 percent of eligible children participated in WIC in 2008.

“Many families in Kentucky may be eligible for work supports for the first time in their lives due to the recession,” said (Terry Brooks, executive director for Kentucky Youth Advocates). “By improving and expanding our outreach efforts we not only ensure that families can make ends meet, we are helping them access federal resources for which they are already eligible. Those resources, that would otherwise go unused, reduce the financial burden on the state, local communities, and businesses and non-profits.”

The book also lists a few positive trends for the state, not the the least of which is a lower infant mortality rate (from 9.8 per 1,000 first-year infants to 6.7) and a child death rate (per 100,000 kids) that dropped from 32 to 22.

But any good news beyond that is kind of scarce. As LEO Weekly first reported earlier this year, the rise in the number of homeless children enrolled in Jefferson County Public Schools is directly attributable to the number of unemployed wrought by the collapse of the U.S. housing market, the net effect being the large scale screwing of poor kids, whom we treat like dirt, and the data collected by Kentucky Youth Advocates only confirms the worst.

According to the book, an estimated 47 percent of renter households have incomes in 2010 that are too low to adequately afford the cost of rent and utilities for a 2-bedroom apartment.Furthermore, it really sucks to be anything other than white in Obama’s America, especially if you’re unemployed or underemployed:

Unequal economic opportunities among races become evident in comparing poverty rates across racial groups. Nationally in 2008, poverty rates were lowest among Asian and Pacific Islander and non-Hispanic White children (12 percent and 11 percent, respectively). Among groups that have experienced systemic lack of access to jobs and other economic opportunities, child poverty rates were higher at 28 percent for Hispanic or Latino children, 31 percent for American Indian children, and 34 percent for Black or African-American children.8 Poverty rates are even greater in Kentucky for many populations, where 20 percent of non-Hispanic White children, 44 percent of Black or African-American children, and 41 percent of Hispanic or Latino children lived in poverty in 2008.

Which is why this fuck compares himself to MLK, right? Right?

Indeed, the best thing about the book is its matter-of-fact tone when describing (with sourced, empirically sound footnotes!) the benefits that social services programs bring to individuals and the communities in which they live, thereby refuting the trickle down nonsense that’s still popular on television and in newspapers via a nonpartisan, issue-centric fashion.

In fact, you should just go read the whole Kids Count book here, or just be thankful we’re not Indiana. Your pick. Also: Louisville’s mayoral candidates will attempt to wax knowledgeable/human on the subject Sept. 9, 10 a.m. at Metro United Way’s 334 East Broadway HQ.

Obama: “We’re going to show… how cool science can be.”

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:06:23 +0000

Your Nerd-in-Chief, Barack Obama, has pledged an end to the medieval approach our nation has taken with regard to science, technology, education, math and anything else that doesn’t involve Jesus. For example, the White House is partnering with the Discovery Channel to indoctrinate our youth on the finer points of geology and particle physics.

Here are a few choice excerpts from Obama’s science-minded speech, given yesterday on the planet Argon-9.

Now, the students from Oakton High School are going to be demonstrating the “Cougar Cannon,” designed to scoop up and toss moon rocks. I am eager to see what they do — for two reasons. As President, I believe that robotics can inspire young people to pursue science and engineering. And I also want to keep an eye on those robots, in case they try anything. (Laughter.)

And:

Welcome, Mythbusters, from Discovery Channel. Where are they? There they are. (Applause.) I hope you guys left the explosives at home. (Laughter.)

As well as:

I’m announcing that we’re going to have an annual science fair at the White House with the winners of national competitions in science and technology. If you win the NCAA championship, you come to the White House. Well, if you’re a young person and you’ve produced the best experiment or design, the best hardware or software, you ought to be recognized for that achievement, too. Scientists and engineers ought to stand side by side with athletes and entertainers as role models, and here at the White House we’re going to lead by example. We’re going to show young people how cool science can be.

Nation of Fatties Goes Hungry

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:49:54 +0000

Those of you familiar with the “Back to the Future” series of documentaries are probably aware of what a paradox is, wherein two diametrically opposed, contradictory realities appear to coexist in the same universe, causing much confusion and the comical raising of eyebrows. Along those lines — and minus the comedy – here’s a report from the USDA, released today, that says children are going hungry in the fattest country on the planet. How can this be?

According to The Washington Post:

In 2008, the report found, nearly 17 million children — more than one in five across the United States — were living in households in which food at times ran short, up from slightly more than 12 million children the year before. And the number of children who sometimes were outright hungry rose from nearly 700,000 to almost 1.1 million.

Among people of of all ages, nearly 15 percent last year did not consistently have adequate food, compared with about 11 percent in 2007, the greatest deterioration in access to food during a single year in the history of the report.

Taken together, the findings provide the latest glimpse into the toll that the weak economy has taken on the well-being of the nation’s residents. The findings are from a snapshot of food in America that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued every year since 1995, based on Census Bureau surveys. It documents both Americans who are scrounging for adequate food — people living with some amount of “food insecurity” in the lexicon of experts — and those whose food shortages are so severe that they are hungry.

Meanwhile, the country has for the past several decades continued to expand its collective waistlines. This is disconcerting, yet the reason should be obvious: Income inequality is higher than ever, effectively meaning that poor kids just aren’t supposed to eat as good as rich ones. But hey, this is ‘Merica: If you can’t pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, boil and eat those — or someone else’s — bootstraps, instead.

Dr. Obamastein’s Monster: “Ungh, Ergh, Health Care!”

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:45:18 +0000

Quick! Stop it before it throws a little girl into a well! Seriously, we could spend plenty of time discussing how the TARP money was spent prior to Obama’s coup of the White House, or how Franklin Roosevelt spent more money than God and fixed an economy that was broken by Wall Street the first time around, or how the “failed” stimulus bill hasn’t even kicked in yet / how it was too small to begin with, or how actual progressive-economists are being excluded from the debate altogether, therefore misrepresenting Obama’s current tepid, centrist approach as something other than tepid centrism… but then we wouldn’t see all of these malnourished American children afraid of the big bad deficit. Thanks, Michael Steele!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRqQASW3RCY&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Once again President Obama and Congressional Democrats are rushing

21c Pajama Party Raises Money, Weirdness

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:28:51 +0000

Whenever I hear the words “art philanthropy,” I immediately think of a bunch of rich people wearing pajamas and discussing something they read in the Sunday New York Times “Styles” section at 21c Museum. And, wouldn’t ye know it, that’s exactly what happened!

From a press release:

The International Contemporary Art Foundation’s (ICAF) 4th Annual Pajama Party on June 12 featured a new format where guests made donations of their choice to one of six local nonprofit arts organizations selected by Foundation co-founder Laura Lee Brown. The beneficiaries of the event include: Blue Apple Players, Bunbury Theatre, Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, Louisville Youth Orchestra, Walden Theatre and West Louisville Performing Arts Academy.

Barbara Sexton Smith, Chairwoman of this year’s event, believes the new format invigorated the event, now in its fourth year. “This year’s Pajama Party is a fantastic example of true community partnering where everyone is welcome and everyone benefits!”

OMFG! The event raised $130,000! And it will help children young and old appreciate the value of an oboe or a Cézanne even as they slowly starve to death in this economy! No, really, this is a good thing, we mean it.

Generous sponsorships from Bays Boutique, Brown-Forman, and Yum! Brands made it possible for the beneficiaries to receive 100% of the charitable contributions designated to their organization. ICAF will present the checks to each organization on Tuesday July 14 at 21c Museum Hotel.

You see? Sometimes even The KFC can do something right… sometimes.