Child Poverty in Cincinnati
For much of the past decade Cincinnati’s child poverty rate has ranked among the highest in large cities of the United States. As of 2019’s American Community Survey, over 40.4% (or 2 in 5) children in the city of Cincinnati live below the federal poverty line — an appallingly high value in comparison to the national average of 19.5%. Although the nationwide rate of child poverty is still rather grim, it has generally been on the decline over the past decade. Cincinnati, however, cannot claim to mirror the behaviour of most large American cities; according to the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Queen City’s child poverty rate has continued to fluctuate since the Great Recession of 2007–2009, increasing by 32.4% between 2008–2013 to reach a staggering 53.1%.
It is no secret that the effect of child poverty in Cincinnati is disproportionally skewed by race. Upon examining BestNeighborhood’s interactive maps of the Greater Cincinnati area, it is easily noticeable that areas in which the per capita income and household income is lowest, high school or college graduation is lowest, and employment rate is lowest, match up with the areas in which minority populations — particularly the African American community’s population — are highest.
The story of African American populations being disproportionally impoverished in comparison to white residents of cities is unfortunately a familiar story in America. Richard Rothstein reminds us in his short film, Segregated by Design, that when planning the cities of America, it was “the intention of the federal government to segregate neighbourhoods throughout the nation…”(Segregated by Design). For example, President Roosevelt’s New Deal First Civilian Public Housing Program demolished a series of integrated neighbourhoods in order to create segregated public housing, Lyndon B. Johnson’s Austin Housing Authority forced African Americans into an urban specifically designated ‘ghetto’, and the Federal Housing Administration subsidized suburban communities on the condition that their houses only be sold to white families while prohibiting resale to African Americans. The quality of education in inner-cities in comparison to suburban public school systems mirrors the quality of life in each area. Given that African Americans historically were effectively forced into living in low-quality inner city public housing, while white populations were ferried into the higher-value suburbs, white populations were able to fund higher quality public schools through taxation that the inner-city African American populations intentionally could not imitate. According to Cincinnati Magazine, child impoverishment is linked to “low educational attainment, increased exposure due to violence, hunger, parental incarceration, and the likelihood of being subjected to abuse and neglect,” so with America’s institutionally racist law enforcement incarcerating and harming African Americans at astronomically higher rates than white populations, comparatively poor education and low income of parents in downtown areas, it is unfortunately no wonder that African Americans in the downtown area of Cincinnati are subjected to higher rates of child poverty, by historical intention of the federal government.
But if, sadly, the case of urban vs. suburban segregation of America is synonymous with most of America’s cities, why is Cincinnati’s child poverty rate recovering so poorly and slowly compared to the rest of the nation?
Cincinnati Magazine asserts that there are sundry movements taking the reins to solve Cincinnati’s child poverty crisis, that researchers argue is largely due to high maternal and infant mortality rates, and poor education quality. Hamilton County, one of the city’s largest counties — actually has the second highest rates of infant mortality in the nation (Cradle Cincinnati). Cradle Cincinnati — an organization dedicated to lowering infant mortality — claimed to have decreased its frequency by 15% between 2013–2018, but simultaneously argues that the majority of infant mortality cases occur by ‘bad luck’ or the stress on expecting mothers of minorities due to institutionalised racism. Another organisation — Cincinnati Preschool Promise — works to ensure equitable access to high-quality preschools to prepare every child effectively for kindergarten. Cincinnati’s Freestore Foodbank also contributes greatly to providing nutritious food for those in need, hoping to fuel younger populations to be more capable of making it through high school. The above-mentioned organisations seem to lack the power to decrease Cincinnati’s crisis because they are largely funded by private donations and grants, rather than public City funding. Both movements have made significant steps in decreasing the overall rate of child poverty little by little over time, but is one approach more effective than the other?
I would argue that Cincinnati’s child poverty crisis would best be tackled in a series of pyramid-like approaches. It is a given that the main causes of child poverty are by-products of centuries of institutionalized racism in America’s urban planning, law enforcement, and education systems. The bottom line is, much of the impoverished African American communities in downtown Cincinnati are hungry, don’t have access to great education, and therefore struggle to find employment with salaries that compare to those of white residents in the suburbs. As a result, healthcare grows expensive — even under Medicaid and Medicare — and many medical professionals are inherently biased to alter generic healthcare for African Americans; maternal and infant mortality rates grow in parallel (I’d have to disagree with Cradle Cincinnati’s claim). Those children and/or mothers who do healthily survive childbirth are then subject to hunger and therefore would not be able to perform as adequately as a well-fed individual in school or in the workforce. It is really an endless loop. Therefore, I would argue that Cincinnati needs to distribute a majority of its resources to tackle hunger in downtown Cincinnati, particularly for its youth and parents with young children as a baseline, then tackle funding for education equity and quality, and then as a higher — or equal tier — to education, focus on the education of medical professionals on the very real existence of higher maternal and infant mortality of African Americans (CDC).
Sources:
https://bestneighborhood.org/race-in-cincinnati-oh/
https://www.cincinnatimagazine.com/features/growing-up-poor-in-cincinnati/
https://freestorefoodbank.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Cincinnati-Enquirer9.19.13.pdf
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/p0905-racial-ethnic-disparities-pregnancy-deaths.html
