L.A. Children at Risk During Economic Crisis

Updated 1:00 PM PST, Wed, Nov 19, 2008

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LOS ANGELES-- The national and statewide economic crisis puts Los Angeles County's children at greater risk by squeezing off government resources designed to assist them, county Supervisor Don Knabe said Wednesday.

Knabe, chairman of the county Children's Council, presented a report from the council showing that the number of children below the federal poverty level rose from 620,653 to 659,354 between 2002 and 2006, with the percentage of impoverished children edging up from 22.5 percent to 23.5 percent.

"The unfortunate thing is, as the economy goes south, the needs of families with children go up," Knabe said.

While hard economic times have put the pinch on more and more families, resources to assist them have been drying up. Food pantries in Los Angeles County have seen a 41 percent increase in demand from needy families over the past year, according to the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank.

Knabe said that although county government was riding out the tough times and had even set aside some money for a rainy day fund, cuts at the state level to social programs were forcing it to spend that money to backfill the lost funding.

Parents forced to drop children from expensive coverage

Earlier this month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger predicted that the state's revenue would decline by $11.2 billion by the end of the fiscal year, and proposed $4.7 billion in tax increases coupled with $4.5 billion in additional spending cuts.

"I don't see anything else but cuts ... the problem is the secondary cuts really cut to the bone," Knabe said. "Obviously, a recipe for disaster is to spend one-time money all the time."

With the increase in poverty, Knabe said he expected to see increases in homelessness, child abuse and domestic violence.

The report also showed that, among children between 10 and 17 years of age, the numbers of misdemeanor and felony arrests were on the rise.

On a positive note, the report showed good trends for children under 5 years of age, with fewer children born to teenage mothers and increasing rates of prenatal care.

"Our investments in children aged zero to five appear to be paying off," Knabe said. "I am confident we will see those trends continue. However, it is clear we have work to do on our older children."