Your UN tax dollars at work!
Posted on 03/08/2005 3:51:28 PM PST by SwinneySwitch
Higher government spending on families is needed, the UN says
The US has one of the highest rates of relative child poverty among the world's wealthiest countries, according to a report by the UN.
The US, which is second only to Mexico in the UN children's agency report, is nonetheless one of few countries to see a recent decline in child poverty.
In total, Unicef says up to 50 million children are living in poverty in rich nations and the figure is rising.
Children in Nordic countries are best off, due to higher social spending.
Unicef looked at 24 of the 30 states in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) - a Paris-based group of the world's wealthiest nations.
The figures refer to relative poverty defined as households with income per head below 50% of the national average.
Its Child Poverty in Rich Countries report found that the number of children living in poverty had risen in 17 of those countries over the past decade.
Mexico comes bottom of the table with a figure of 28%.
"No matter which of the commonly used poverty measures is applied, the situation of children is seen to have deteriorated over the last decade," the report says.
National wealth
Even in the few countries where deprivation is declining the rate can remain high - as is the case in the US, where about 22% of those aged under 18 are still living in relative poverty.
Similarly, the UK still has 15% of the child population below the poverty line despite government campaigns which have led to a 10% drop.
Unicef regional director Philip O'Brien stressed that the figures were relative to the average household income of the countries involved, rather than their national wealth.
Higher government spending on family and social benefits is very clearly associated with a lower level of child poverty
Philip O'Brien Unicef regional director
"The child living in poverty in the US is clearly not as badly off as the child in Mexico," he said.
Top of the table are Denmark and Finland, where child poverty levels are less than 3%, while Norway and Sweden follow close behind.
Unicef praised the Nordic nations for their social spending on families.
"Higher government spending on family and social benefits is very clearly associated with a lower level of child poverty," said Mr O'Brien.
He said market forces could not on their own lift children out of poverty and urged direct intervention through greater government spending.
Only the US, the UK, Australia and Norway have had significant drops in child deprivation, according to the figures supplied to the OECD over the past 15 years.
Your UN tax dollars at work!
My BRAVO SIERRA meter is pegged on this rediculous UN report...on just about any UN report.
Since we are so poor, they should stop begging from us and send us foreign aid.
This is totally meaningless.
An American child in "relative" poverty is head and shoulders ahead of what? 99% of all the world's children?
What makes them "poor"? Not enough video games?
You're right! If we didn't have to pay foreign aid maybe we could get more of our taxes back and have more money to raise children.
Wonder how X-Box and obesity figured into their data...
FMCDH(BITS)
"Hmmmm....I notice that Fr*nce is conspicuously missing from that chart."
Obviously, because they are a Third World country!
I also wonder how the second Decade of Greed, aka The Bush Years, figure into their data. I thought we were all TOO rich.
Yes, but my point is more like this: When the liberals are trying to argue that we should give more money to foreigners, they claim we are the richest nation on earth. When they are trying to argue that we should junk our capitalist system and replace it with socialism, they claim we have rampant poverty. Both cannot be correct.
Les french are no longer able to have les children.
Exactly....the word "poverty" here is mostly overblown hype.. Every welfare person I've known has at least one working TV set and a cell phone.. not to mention cars, clothes, shelter, and plenty of food... and they have better access to health care than the average working stiff..
It's true...now if we could only get the Mexicans to go back across the border...it would be false!
I've also noticed that the ones who are too "poor" to buy their kids a $500 computer are the same ones sporting enough gold to make the gubmint wonder if Fort Knox has been looted.
It's also the same as countries saying they want us out of their business. Then in the next sentence say we don't help them out enough.
"relative" child poverty!?
talk about cooked statistics.
Basically we ended up high on this list by producing too many rich people! By this thinking, raising the top marginal tax rate would in itself magically reduce the child poverty rate.. wait, that sounds like it's already in the democratic platform
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