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Homeless Mothers
Every year the Census Bureau publishes a fact sheet to honor Mother’s Day. Some sample selections from that sheet lead to a discussion of the more frightening stats about mothers and families the Bureau’s press release omits.
94.1
Number of births in 2006 per 1,000 women of childbearing age in Utah, which led the nation. At the other end of the spectrum was Vermont, with a rate of 52.2 births.
82.8 million
Estimated number of mothers in the United States in 2004.
55%
Among mothers with infant children in 2004, the percentage in the labor force, down from a record high of 59 percent in 1998.
751,322
Number of child care centers across the country in 2005.
10.4 million
The number of single mothers living with children younger than 18, up from 3.4 million in 1970.
Below are what the Census Bureau press release does not tell you because Guess Who is in the White House!
Unless otherwise noted, all numbers 2005 data from Statistical Abstracts.
1,909
Number of families in thousands receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF–formerly AFDC). Down from 2,554 in 1999 and 4,791 in 1995 (The year before welfare “reform.”). In other words, under the GOP the federal government has cut aid to families needing assistance in half. Has the need fallen by half? See the following statistics for an answer.
25.7 Million
Number of people receiving food stamps. Up from 17.2 in 2000. In other words, under the Bush Administration the number of people needing food stamps has increased by an astounding 67%.
8.0 Million
Number participating in the WIC (Women, Infants and Children) supplemental food program in 2005. In 2000 the figure was 7.2 million. George Bush has increased the number of mothers needing supplemental food by 11%!
2,475 million
Number of free lunches served, up from 2,205 in 2000 a 12% increase under the Bush Administration.
322 Million
Emergency feedings which the Census Bureau defines as “provides free commodities to needy persons for home consumption through food banks, hunger centers, soup kitchens, and similar nonprofit agencies. Includes the Emergency Food Assistance Program, the commodity purchases for soup kitchens/food banks program (FY 1989−96), and commodity disaster relief.” In 2000 this number was 182 million. Again life under the Bush Administration has become so hard for some families that the number of emergency food requests has almost DOUBLED!
10,070
Number in thousands of households receiving food stamps. Over half of these are households with children and a third are single parent households! In 2000 the figure was 7,335. Again, George Bush has increased the number of people needing food stamps by an unbelievable 50%!
This year when you settle down to your Mother’s Day Dinner, whatever it may be and wherever you are think of what the Bush Administration has done to America’s mothers. It represents nothing less than a national disgrace! No administration in modern history has so dramatically worsened the lives of American families. This from an administration and a party that preached the importance of “family values.”
Under George Bush “family values” has come to mean that on Mother’s Day more families than in the last year of the Clinton Administration will be sitting down to barely adequate meals–if they have any meal at all. More families need food stamps, emergency food, free lunches for their children, and other assistance. Of course, if your family makes over a quarter of a million dollars a year the Bush tax cuts have enabled you to have a very pleasant Mother’s Day meal, complete with thousand dollar bottles of wine.
Perhaps nothing else better speaks to the Republican Counterrevolution’s desire to roll back the gains of the New Deal and its successors. Under George Bush America is rapidly regressing to the nineteenth century when mothers were lucky to make it past middle age–and those that did were old beyond their years. As for the families of these mothers, their sons and daughters often worked as soon as they were able. When they sat down to eat, hunger took a seat as as an unwelcome guest at too many tables.
Maybe we should call today’s sad situation the Bush Mother’s Day Tax, because George W. Bush is taxing America’s mothers like no one in a long time.
Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation
Julia Ward Howe is probably most famous for writing the words to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” A staunch abolitionist and peace advocate, (she had walked battlefields still strewn with Civil War dead with her friend Abraham Lincoln) In 1870 she wrote a poem that has since become known as the Mother’s Day Proclamation. Given the current situation her words mean more now than ever.
Arise then…women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
“We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace…
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
Woodrow Wilson
Given Howe’s words, there is a certain resonance when you recall President Wilson declared the first official Mothers Day on May 9, 1914, a little more than a month before the world was about to plunge into another great war.
Now, Therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the said Joint Resolution, do hereby direct the government officials to display the United States flag on all government buildings and do invite the people of the United States to display the flag at their homes or other suitable places on the second Sunday in May as a public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.
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