Poverty costs us all

The cost to the American economy of childhood poverty alone is about $500 billion a year – almost 4% of the Gross Domestic Product. The cost is measured in lost productivity and economic output, in higher crime rates, and in higher health care costs. View report.

Imagine what this means for Minnesota in which the numbers of children in poverty has been growing since 2003. More than 150,000 children in Minnesota now live below the federal poverty line, a line that measures destitution.  Another 206,000 children are living in households unable to meet their basic needs – in which low wages are not enough to pay for food, housing, clothing and transportation.  Read more from The Children's Defense Fund Minnsesota.


And we are seeing the costs:

• Food shelf using growing fastest in the suburbs
• A housing mortgage crisis that has not contained itself to low income neighborhoods or communities
• Working adults and children filling homeless shelters in Minnesota

It is time:
Minnesota begins the 21st century with a legacy of prosperity and progressive successes – but we face new challenges:

• By 2020 we will have more people 65 years and older than we will have school age children. We will no longer be able to afford to leave some working age adults sidelined out of the workforce in destitution.
• What had been a falling poverty rate from 1994 to has been creeping back up in recent years – we should act.

To learn more visit the Half in Ten website at www.halfinten.org.

Legislative Commission to End Poverty
The Minnesota State Legislature established the Legislative Commission to End Poverty in Minnesota by 2020 in 2006 with the mission to develop guidelines to end poverty and prepare recommendation on how to end poverty in Minnesota by 2020.

Learn more about the Commission and read their recommendations at their website.