Lawmakers Have Plan To Cut Child Poverty Rate In Half

HARTFORD (AP) — Some state legislators have come up with a plan to cut Connecticut’s child poverty rate in half over the next decade, saying the problem can no longer be ignored.

They want the state to spend an estimated $500 million to $1 billion over the next ten years to improve job training, create decent-paying jobs, help families take advantage of earned income tax credits, and provide more access to transportation, higher education, child care, and other services.

The initiative was introduced in a series of bills lawmakers submitted Tuesday and is based on recommendations made last fall by the state’s Child Poverty Council.

State Rep Mary Mushinsky, D-Wallingford, said the goal is to bring 12,000 families out of poverty each year for the next ten years.

“Every problem we look at in its entirety seems intimidating, but if you look at it in an incremental way, it’s doable,” said Mushinsky, one of the leaders of the initiative.

“Connecticut’s child poverty rate is embarrassing in a state as advanced as ours is,” Mushinsky added.

About 90,000 children are living in poverty in Connecticut, most of them in the state’s largest cities, according to the state Commission on Children. Despite that number, the state is ranked third in the nation for children living above the federal poverty level, which is $19,350 in annual income for a family of four.

One in four Connecticut children under age 6 live in low-income families making below 200 percent of the poverty level, according to the latest statistics. In larger cities such as New Haven, it is one in three. In Hartford, it is one in two, according to state Rep Jack Thompson, D-Manchester, another supporter of the plan.

Connecticut is one of the wealthiest states in the country, but its capital, Hartford, has the second-highest child poverty level — 41 percent — for a city its size in America. Only Brownsville, Texas, has a higher level.

“This, in my mind, is perhaps the most significant moral issue we have an opportunity to discuss and do something about in this legislative session,” Thompson said Tuesday.

“It’s so transparent what poverty does to children,” Thompson said. “In every single measure of well-being of children, children living in poverty are at the lowest end of the spectrum.”