Public Employee Press

Recession's littlest victims
Part 3 of a series on how the economic crisis is affecting working families

By JANE LaTOUR

Some New Yorkers pay more for a 1-bedroom apartment than the average DC 37 member earns in a lifetime of hard work, but over 30 percent of New York City's children live in poverty. Most families are struggling to juggle rising costs for food, rent, transportation and medical care. Even with both parents working, costs are prohibitive.

Local 372 member Lisa Soto, the mother of four, works as a School Lunch Aide/Cook at John Phillip Sousa Middle School in the Bronx. "We live on a very tight budget because everything is so expensive," she said. "We have to get Metro Cards for four, so imagine how much we are spending!" Two of her children commute to local colleges - with the assistance of financial aid. They get $7 a day for food.

"Sometimes at the end of the week they get $5. We're always cutting back. We go by the children's needs and not their wants," Soto said.

For the members Mayor Bloomberg recently laid off, times are much tougher. Local 372 member Solangee Zuluaga, a mother of three, told the Manhattan Times her biggest concern is for her children. "With my job, I had health benefits for them," she said.

Without day care they can rely on, many parents could be forced to quit their jobs, plunging more families into poverty, yet Mayor Bloomberg tried to eliminate more than 16,500 children from public day care this year.

DC 37 joined DC 1707 in fighting the cuts, lobbying and demonstrating, and the City Council forced Bloomberg to rescind most of the cuts. The union has also been part of the coalition fighting to save day-care vouchers for families. "I used the voucher for my youngest child," said Mrs. Soto.

The Children's Defense Fund report, "The State of America's Children 2011," calls the impact of the recession "catastrophic." The number of children who fell into poverty between 2008 and 2009 was the largest single-year increase ever recorded. By 2009, almost 16 million children needed food stamps, a 65 percent increase over the last 10 years.

As the number of homeless children in public schools increased 41 percent from the 2006-07 school year to 2008-09, New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow says we are in "the decade of lost children." The children of today face a future of rising income inequality (see page 25) and city and state budget cuts in services and education.

"Things are hard for everybody, but I try to have my children concentrate on their education. I have a son with a heart condition, but you're not supposed to take a day off. I have to jeopardize my job to take care of my child," said Soto. "I have a lot of fears for my children."