by Dan Alexe The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) on Tuesday said in a report that 2.6 million more children have sunk below the poverty line in the world's most affluent countries since 2008, bringing the total number of children in the developed world living in poverty to an estimated 76.5 million. The report, analysing 41 counties in the OECD and the European Union on whether levels of child poverty have increased or decreased since 2008, also tracked the proportion of 15 to 24 year-olds who are not in education, employment or training (NEET). It noted that, in 23 of the 41 countries, child poverty has increased since 2008. In Ireland, Croatia, Latvia, Greece and Iceland, rates rose by over 50 %. In Greece in 2012 median household incomes for families with children sank to 1998 levels – the equivalent of a loss of 14 years of income progress. By this measure Ireland, Luxembourg and Spain lost a decade; Iceland lost 9 years; and Italy, Hungary and Portugal lost 8. Meanwhile, the recession has hit 15-24 year olds especially hard, with the number of NEETs rising dramatically in many countries. In the European Union 7.5 million young people were classified as NEET in 2013, almost equivalent to the population of Switzerland. In the United States, where extreme child poverty has increased more in this downturn than during the recession of 1982, social safety net measures provided important support to poor working families but were less effective for the extreme poor without jobs. Child poverty has increased in 34 out of 50 states since the start of the crisis. In 2012, 24.2 million children were living in poverty, a net increase of 1.7 million from 2008. "Many affluent countries have suffered a great leap backwards in terms of household income, and the impact on children will have long-lasting repercussions for them and their communities," Jeffrey O'Malley, UNICEF's Head of Global Policy and Strategy, said in a statement. The UNICEF report used a fixed reference point, anchored to the relative poverty line in 2008 and adjusted for inflation, as a benchmark against which to assess the absolute change in child poverty over time. Nevertheless, another significant finding of the UNICEF report is the fact that in 18 countries child poverty actually fell, sometimes markedly. Australia, Chile, Finland, Norway, Poland and the Slovak Republic reduced levels by around 30 per cent.
 |
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.neurope.eu |
