Editorial roundup

June 14

The Commercial Dispatch

Child poverty

Each year, the Annie E. Casey Foundation releases its Kids Count Report, which provides data on the state of the nation’s children. It is a voluminous report, drawn from U.S. Census data and other sources, that examines the conditions our children live with on a state-by-state basis, funneling the data into four major categories — economic well-being, education, health and family/community.

You will find nothing unusual about how Mississippi’s children compare to those of other states in this year’s report. It is, as disturbing, as always. Or at least, it should be disturbing. …

Mississippi ranks last or near the last in all four categories and, when all four are combined, Mississippi is last there, too.

If this were a ranking of “best states to attend the opera” or “best states to find great sushi bars” we could shrug it off, easy enough.

But when 3 out of every 10 of the state’s most innocent, most vulnerable residents find themselves living in poverty and all of the soul-crippling, hope-depriving things that go with it, we should be shocked into action.

But it seems we have become desensitized to the very real human suffering the data in this report so plainly states. …

The issue of child poverty is so pervasive that only the collective will of the people, exercised though the government we choose to act on our behalf, can address it on a consistent, coordinated and continual way.

We pause here to honor the dedication of so many private groups — churches, civic clubs, charities — who are in the trenches, trying as best they can with limited resources, to meet the needs of the desperate poor. We are a big-hearted people and we answer the call of conscience. …

We must be sure that our legislators hear the anguished cries of the poor child. Regular citizens can be that voice. The urgency of the message must be made clear to those who are in a position to do something about it.

We offer no solution, for there is likely no single solution. Nor can we lay the burden solely on the shoulders of our government. But government must carry its share of the load, which it clearly has been unwilling to do.

It is likely that improving the conditions of our children will take a broad-based, coordinated, well-funded public-private partnership.

But first, we have to care.

Do we?

Ask your legislator.