OUR VIEW • FOR ITS POVERTY RATE, MISSOURI SHOULD BE PLACED ON CHILD NEGLECT REGISTRY.

The hot line state

Under Missouri's child protection law, teachers and other school officials with responsibility for the care of children are "mandatory reporters" who must "immediately report or cause a report to be made" to the Children's Division of the Missouri Department of Social Services whenever they have "reasonable cause to suspect that a child has been or may be subjected to abuse or neglect."

The hot lines must be ringing off the hook.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Census Bureau reported a sharp rise in child poverty in 2009. One in every five Missouri children — 20.3 percent or 284,306 in total — was living in poverty. That's up more than 30 percent since 2000, when it stood at 15.2 percent, the low mark for the decade.

Missouri's child protective statute defines neglect as the "failure to provide ... the proper or necessary support, education as required by law, nutrition or medical, surgical, or any other care necessary for the child's well being."

Poverty, in turn, is defined as family income for four people (including two children) of $22,050 a year, or $1,837.50 a month or less.

By these federal standards, poor means dirt poor.

Gather your bills — rent, utilities, food, transportation, clothing, out-of-pocket medical expenses, just the basics — and see for yourself. Then imagine what life would be like when the little available for necessities runs out. Then talk to some teachers or area charities that work with low-income families about the practical challenges they face just getting by.

If not a form of neglect, what would you call pushing more and more Missouri children into poverty?

Who is responsible? Who should be reported to the social services department?

Certainly not the children themselves. Indeed, the greatest proportion of children living in poverty are those younger than 6.

In absolute terms, the greatest number of Missouri children living in poverty reside in suburban and rural parts of the state. In terms of the rate of child poverty, rural and urban areas nearly were tied according to 2008 data: 30 percent of children in urban areas and 27 percent in rural areas were a part of families whose income fell below the federal poverty standard.

When you add families with income between 100 percent and 200 percent of the poverty level, low-income families account for 60 percent of families in rural areas and 47 percent in urban centers.

Perhaps we should report parents for their children's plight, those "able-bodied adults" who, state legislators always complain, aren't supporting their families.

Some parents might well be able to do better by themselves and their kids. But, in 2008, more than two-thirds of Missouri children living in poverty had at least one parent working full time or part time, according to data gathered by Columbia University's National Center for Children in Poverty.

Today, with higher unemployment rates, parents "don't have bootstraps to pull themselves up by," said Ruth Ehresman of the Missouri Budget Project.

"Many don't even have boots," she said.

Maybe we should report Congress, particularly those members of Missouri's congressional delegation who have opposed extensions of federal unemployment benefits. There is no surer way to make poverty even deeper.

Or what about state lawmakers who balanced the budget by making more than a billion dollars in spending cuts, not by asking Missourians to do more. Included were deep cuts in programs that serve children, including the educational funding these same officials said was essential to meeting minimum standards of education.

Anyone found to have committed child neglect in Missouri is supposed to be placed on a "central registry." We might just keep things simple and register the entire state.

Of this we can be sure: One day, we all will pay the price for those Missouri children living in poverty today.


Now, read it again...and again...and again.