By Bob Hennelly

In this episode of WBAI-Pacifica’s “What’s Going On?” with Keziah Glow, we dive right into an urgent issue affecting millions of families across the nation: child poverty. It’s a post-pandemic reality Albany refuses to address in any truly transformative way.

The national poverty rate rose to 12.7% in 2023, up from 12.4% the previous year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. States like Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, West Virginia, and even New York—where the wealth gap is stark—are among the hardest hit.

And the shocking reality is the definition of poverty is a huge undercount that obscures the lived circumstances of New York State’s working families. We know from MIT’s Living Wage Calculator and the United Way’s ALICE (Asset Limited-Income Constrained But Employed) that well over a third of households, including millions with children, struggle week to week to cover the basics.

For New York State’s single mothers with children, fully 75 percent are struggling. For men similarly situated, it’s 61 percent. In places like Bronx County, 70 percent of households are not making ends meet and forgoing at least one basic necessity to balance their budget. And the race disparities statewide are equally pronounced.

This is a combination of the rising costs of living, totally inadequate wages, insufficient union density and massive wealth inequality in New York where  big corporations and the top one percent use millions in campaign cash to keep this obscene status quo locked in place.

Thankfully, there are some tangible efforts in Albany to address this crisis—including legislation from State Senator James Sanders Jr and Assembly Member Phil Stack to actually repeal the New York State Stock Transfer Tax Rebate. Astonishingly, New York continues to rebate the stock transfer tax—a mere dime on every $100 stock sale—sending nearly $400 billion back to Wall Street since the 1980s, even as we let hospitals close, public housing deteriorate, and infrastructure crumble. 

Senator Andrew Gounardes, meanwhile, has proposed the Working Families Tax Credit. We speak  to Senator Gounardes about his child tax credit proposal and how it could help to slash child poverty in across the state.

In the second half of the show, we  also talk with Anna Jinja, host of The Anna Jinja Show from KHOI 89.1 FM in Ames, Iowa, about her unique perspective on adoption, belonging, and the broader social challenges facing children today.  

Children are our future, all of them.

Listen to the entire show below:

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