America’s wealth grew by 60 percent [3] in the past six years, by over $30 trillion. In approximately the same time, the number of homeless children has also grown by 60 percent [4].
Financier and CEO Peter Schiff said [5], “People don’t go hungry in a capitalist economy.” The 16 million kids [6] on food stamps know what it’s like to go hungry. Perhaps, some in Congress would say, those children should be working. “There is no such thing as a free lunch,” insisted [7] Georgia Representative Jack Kingston, even for schoolkids, who should be required to “sweep the floor of the cafeteria” (as theyactually do at a charter school [8] in Texas).
The callousness of U.S. political and business leaders is disturbing, shocking. Hunger is just one of the problems of our children. Teacher Sonya Romero-Smith told [9] about the two little homeless girls she adopted: “Getting rid of bedbugs, that took us a while. Night terrors, that took a little while. Hoarding food..”
America is a ‘Leader’ in Child Poverty
The U.S. has one of the highest relative child poverty rates [10] in the developed world. As UNICEF [11] reports, “[Children’s] material well-being is highest in the Netherlands and in the four Nordic countries and lowest in Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and the United States.”
Over half [12] of public school students are poor enough to qualify for lunch subsidies, and almost half [13] of black children under the age of six are living in poverty.