Human Rights Experts See Connection Between Poverty And Recession

Georgetown University professor Harry Holzer said Thursday that there is a high correlation between the recession and the nation’s poverty level.

“Reports have shown that children growing up in poverty impose high cost on the economy since they have lower levels of educational achievement, lower employment, worse health, higher mortality rate, and are more likely to engage in crime,” said Holzer, who is also a fellow at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C..

Holzer participated in a conference call with reporters to respond to the U.S. Census Bureau’s new report that shows the country’s poverty rate increased to over 14% in 2009.

Human rights advocate Wade Henderson expressed alarm over the report. “These numbers are a moral outrage and challenge our nation’s internal security,” he said.

However, Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, credited the Obama administration with preventing the number of poverty-stricken Americans from being even higher.

“Without President Obama’s economic policies these numbers would have escalated by now.”

Holzer painted a grim picture in terms of the rate of child poverty, which has risen nationwide from 18% to 21% in the last two years, saying that it is likely to worsen in the coming years. This increase, Holzer said, will “accumulate to a long term cost of about 500 billion dollars a year.”

Both men encouraged Congress to pass legislation to create good-paying jobs and provide tax breaks to working families.

“We must make sure that we connect people to their jobs, and ensure that work pays more than welfare,” Holzer said.