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Children.....An Agenda of Urgency


33% of black children live in poverty..... 35% of black children live with two married parents compared to 83% of Asian children...... 77% of white children, and 65% of Hispanic children..... A Black baby is born uninsured every five minutes. One out of every seven babies born uninsured is Black......Black infants are more than twice as likely as White infants to die before their first birthday.....One in three Black children is poor.....Chicago loses more black kids than soldiers in Iraq to gun violence.....7.0% of Black children (767,200 children) had a parent in prison.....70 percent of African American children are born to unmarried mothers.....61% of black children "6.5 million"live in low-income families......Black children are 9 times more likely than White children to have a parent in prison....69% of Black children cannot read in the 4th grade.....Gunfire killed 3,365 children and teens in 1999 "more than 38 percent were Black youth.....Homicide is the leading cause of death among Black males ages 15 to 24.....Firearm death rate for Black males 15-19 is four times that of White males of the same age.....Nationally, Black youths under age 18 represent 15 percent of the juvenile population but make up 26 percent of juvenile arrests.....One of every two Black children lives in poverty.....More than half of Black children live in single-parent homes.....In some inner-city schools the drop out rate climbs higher than 75 percent.....A Black infant born in the U.S. is twice as likely to die before his or her first birthday





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September 10.2008

Deadbeats don't get checks
Records show child support agencies seized 1.4 million federal stimulus checks totaling $831 million.

STEVE LeBLANC Associated Press Writer

BOSTON: Deadbeat dads and moms around the country are discovering that their economic stimulus checks from Washington intended to encourage the purchase of TVs, cars and other goods are being intercepted and funneled toward the support of their children.

Treasury Department figures obtained by The Associated Press show that more than 1.4 million of the checks have been seized since the payments began last spring, and a total of $831 million has been collected by child support agencies nationwide.

Cheryl Hayes, a 32-year-old paralegal student from Auburn, Mass., said her ex-husband owes about $30,000 in support for their three children, and she hopes to see some of that via his stimulus check.

Hayes said that while she knows the stimulus checks were intended to encourage people to head down to the local Wal-Mart, Best Buy or Home Depot, in the case of deadbeat parents, their childrenââ'¬â"¢s well-being should come first.

The stimulus check is something at least they can get to help live off of, Hayes said. It should go to the children because the children are the ones that would need it.
The parents who are owed child support won't immediately see the money. And in some cases they may not receive it at all.

The intercepted checks in Massachusetts, for example, are deposited with the state and held for 180 days to allow the parent to file an appeal. If the appeal is denied, the money is turned over to the parent who has custody. In most cases, the mother unless she has been on public assistance, in which case the funds can go back to the state and federal government to reimburse the taxpayers.

Some states hold the funds longer, others for less time.

In California, $97.9 million was collected via 152,877 diverted checks, while Texas brought in $80.3 million from 132,144 payments. Rhode Island saw a $1.9 million boost from 3,465 diverted checks. Massachusetts took in $11.2 million, Tennessee $24.4 million.

It's been a very nice bonus for our children in need of support,said Mike Adams, assistant commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Human Services. We've been very pleased with the amount of money we've been able to collect.

The stimulus program proposed by President Bush and approved by Congress provided $600 checks for most individuals and $1,200 for couples filing jointly, with a $300 per-child credit added on.

States submit the names and Social Security numbers of deadbeat parents to the IRS, which crosschecks those names against the lists of taxpayers receiving stimulus checks. The IRS then sends the deadbeat parents checks straight to state child support agencies.