Thread: More in El Paso use food stamps

More in El Paso use food stamps
By Diana Washington Valdez / El Paso Times
Posted: 07/29/2009 12:00:00 AM MDT


EL PASO -- The number of children in El Paso County who received food stamps and lived in poverty continued to increase during the Texas economic boom and before the current recession began, according to the 2009 Kids Count Data book released Tuesday.
The report shows the number of El Paso children (89,010) living in poverty rose 3.3 percent between 2002 and 2007. The number of children (88,293) on food stamps rose 15.5 percent between 2002 and 2006.

El Paso's statistics reflected a state wide trend for Texas, which had 1.5 million children living in poverty in 2007, compared with 1.4 million in 2003. The number of Texas children on food stamps in 2006 was 1.5 million, a 13.2 percent increase from 2002.

Executives for the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin said the statistics -- based on the most updated information available -- were gathered before the current economic recession. They also said that meant the child well-being indicators might be worse as more recent numbers catch up to the economic downturn.

"Unfortunately, the data shows that even during strong economic times, children fell through the cracks," Texas Kids Count Director Frances Deviney said. "The question remains -- will Texas continue to be one of the worst states for child outcomes, or will we make the necessary investments in public structures that encourage child health and economic security?"

The Annie E. Casey Foundation's Kids Count statistics ranked Texas in the bottom third of states (34th of 50) on overall child well-being. The Center for Public Policy Priorities conducts the Kids Count research for the foundation.
The 2009 data book shows that compared to 2000, more Texas children were living in economically insecure families in 2007, which state officials had described as a boom year for the Lone Star State.

Jorge Salazar, Centro de Salud Familiar La Fe's director of community health services, said the economic recession began sooner for El Paso than the nationwide downturn.

"It began for us when NAFTA displaced thousands of our middle-class workers," said Salazar, a 2003 fellow of the Annie Casey Foundation. "They were caught by the recent downturn just as some of them were beginning to bounce back. Some of the new jobs after NAFTA took effect were in telemarketing, the call centers."

Adults who had learned to live with less themselves started to seek food stamps and other assistance for their kids, he said.

El Pasoans who worked in retail and service jobs lost jobs or saw their hours cut back after investment began to dry up, due to the national recession, as well as a decrease in Juárez shoppers due to new passport requirements and violence south of the border.

However, Salazar said, El Paso's economy will benefit from construction related to bond issues and federal stimulus money, and from the new medical school and its health industry spinoffs.

On the positive side, in 2006, child deaths in Texas fell to 21 deaths per 100,000 population for children ages 1 to 14 years old, compared with 23 per 100,000 in 2002. Analysts attributed the decline to fewer accidents.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore, Md., is a private organization devoted to helping build better a future for disadvantaged children in the United States.

The foundation provides funding for the nonpartisan Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin for the Kids Count initiative, a national and state-by-state effort to track the status of children.

Diana Washington Valdez may be reached at dvaldez@elpasotimes.com


http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_12934053

ANCHOR BABIES...

I wonder how many are children of IAs working off the books or even owning their own business's and are actually living pretty well. If it's the same there as it is here in NYC I'd guess 25 to 50%. Though there are laws against IAs receiving social services the SOP here is not to question immigration status.

If I could just lie on a few forms and receive the many freebies that are available and work off the books my fiscal circumstances would be better than they are now.

Reminds me of the post:

Joe Legal vs. Jose Illegal

http://www.sodahead.com/blog/107275/joe ... e-illegal/