The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted childhood in all states, with particularly devastating consequences in the South, where families are more likely to be without food and struggle with bills and access to online education, according to a new report.
Louisiana – where 1 in 4 families do not have enough food, more than anywhere else in the country – is rated the “worst” state for children during the pandemic, the global non-profit organization Save the Children found in its ranking based on US census surveys. It was followed by Mississippi, Texas, New Mexico and Alabama. Minnesota and Utah were the states where children did best, with Washington, New Hampshire and North Dakota completing the top five.
“Children and families are suffering across the country, but there are some communities, and some states, that are better equipped to navigate that,” said Shane Garver, senior director of rural education at Save the Children.
To compile the ratings, the organization’s researchers analyzed data from August 19 through December 21 from the fortnightly Household Pulse Survey of the Census Bureau, which asks participants about their lives during the pandemic, from their employment status to their views on the Covid 19 vaccine. Save the Children’s findings focus on food insecurity, Internet access for schoolwork and difficulty paying basic household expenses.
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The disparities are not limited to geography. Forty-one percent of parents who earn less than $ 25,000 a year reported not having enough to eat. The report found that black children were particularly vulnerable to hunger. Nearly 30 percent of black families and 1 in 4 Hispanic families said that they sometimes or often did not have enough food to eat, according to the report. This is almost double the number of white families.
The chasm extends to education. Tens of thousands of children have not entered a classroom since last April. Black and Hispanic students are more likely to still be learning remotely. They are also more likely to have a harder time accessing devices and the reliable Internet needed for online teaching. Louisiana had the lowest mark last December for the percentage of families able to access online learning, with only 1 in 4 saying they had what they needed to log on regularly.
When schools closed last spring, Chriscella Metoyer, director of the Save the Children Head Start program for northwest Louisiana, said that at least 60% of families served by the program had no internet or a device to follow their children’s online classes. .
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The Head Start centers ended up being able to supply tablets to families, but she worries about the difficulties that her team cannot explain. Several daycare centers in the region have been closed and some families find it difficult to attend preschool classes at home.
The difficulties affected the Metoyer family. Her 22-year-old daughter, Amberlyn, who lives in Natchitoches, was out of work when the daycare center she worked in closed for two months. As a single mother with a 4-year-old son, she asked the family for help. When the center reopened, several parents never sent their children back, leaving them with less hours. At this point, she learned that she was pregnant and decided to stay home to limit her chances of getting the virus.
Amberlyn says that food assistance and family support helped, but she was not always able to pay the bills. Then, in mid-September, about a month before giving birth, she lost her home in an electrical fire.
She started slowly again and plans to graduate from college in May, but she worries about Covid-19’s numbers rising again and damaging her stability again, while she worries about her 4-month-old son and daughter.
“I would feel like I was back to square one,” she said.
The factors that determine the ability of many families to survive were put into action long before the first case of the coronavirus arrived in the United States.
“Before the pandemic, 90 percent of counties in the United States with the highest rates of food insecurity were rural to begin with,” said Garver. “So, these were some of the least prepared children, families and communities. There was minimal local investment and local infrastructure to withstand a pandemic like this. “
Before the pandemic, child poverty rates in Louisiana, Mississippi and New Mexico were among the worst in the country, further fueling the difficulties that families are now facing. And it is not just about rural areas – the economic crisis has also hit large cities in the south.
These circumstances portend a long road to recovery for communities like Shreveport, Louisiana.
More than 25 percent of residents in the black-majority city live in poverty.
Omari Ho-Sang, founder of All Streets, All People, a grassroots organization that helps coordinate relief efforts for families in Shreveport during the pandemic, said the revolt is the latest in a long list of setbacks, including poverty. generational and low quality of education, which the group has tried to combat.
“We are hearing stories about people who are losing their jobs and who are completely dependent on these stimulus checks,” she said. Others do not have access to bank accounts or change frequently, resulting in checks being sent to old addresses.
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It was a difficult year for a break. A winter storm last month left many in the city without running water. All Streets, All People distributed bottled water, but it does not reach everyone. The added expense of buying safe enough water to drink is more of a difficulty.
Ho-Sang worries about how the stress triggered by these events will hit children. Emergency rooms across the country have seen an increase in visits related to mental health, and students who learn remotely report being more physically affected by stress than their peers who attend school in person.
“This pandemic lasted for about a year for us,” said Ho-Sang, “but I think the impact will be 10 years for children.”