GOVERNMENT AID HELPS THE POOR. BUT NOBODY’S THRIVING ON IT. CASH ASSISTANCE THAT A FAMILY OF FOUR CAN RECEIVE IN KANSAS*
expanding health-care coverage for low-income Kansans or reducing food-stamp benefits at the federal level. But some advocates, such as Shannon Cotsoradis of Kansas Action for Children, wonder if Kansans could frame the discussion in a way that focuses on what would help children the most. “I think we need to spend less time talking about the adults who are relying on safety-net programs today and probably will be for many years to come, and we need to spend more time on how we make sure that today’s poor children don’t become tomorrow’s poor adults. Our focus is entirely in the wrong place,” says Cotsoradis, the organization’s chief executive and a partner with the Kansas Leadership Center who is attempting to change the conversation on childhood poverty in Kansas.
What’s at Stake
$450-$500 PER MONTH limited to 48 months (used to be 60 months)
PER PERSON AVERAGE MONTHLY FOOD ASSISTANCE BENEFIT IN KANSAS
$124.19 PER PERSON
OR ABOUT:
$4.12 PER DAY
*The funds cannot be used on alcohol, tobacco or lottery tickets.
e
ven when we fight over our perspectives, it’s clear that there’s substantial human capital lost when children don’t find pathways out of poverty. But quantifying that work is difficult.
“The data in and of itself doesn’t get to the reason of why people are poor, so it does leave it to someone’s philosophical beliefs to fill in the blanks,” says Karen Wulfkuhle, executive director of United Community Services of Johnson County.
Value judgments take over: The poor make bad decisions. They waste money on iPhones. They don’t work. Regardless, economists agree that attending to the issue of poverty is imperative. It saves money in the long run. By now many of us know about the figures: Every dollar invested can pay significant dividends down the road. Some estimate annual returns of quality early-childhood education at 10 percent. It’s especially true for at-risk children, according to Nobel laureate economist James Heckman. He estimates a nearly 7 percent to 10 percent annual rate of return on the investment when one calculates lower crime rates, better overall health, lower social welfare costs and more. “There are very, very few government programs that have any rates of return close to this,” says Heckman, from the University of Chicago, on his website. Cotsoradis adds another complexity to the situation in Kansas. “In Kansas we grow our own. People don’t flock here. So if we’re losing nearly one in four kids because they’re growing up in poverty without access to good educational opportunities, health care, all the things they need to grow up to be healthy contributing adults, that really has huge implications for our future workforce and our future economic prosperity,” she says. “So it makes a lot of sense to talk about why we want to invest in these kids.”
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