In the United States, children are more likely to experience poverty than people over 18.

In 2020, about 1 in 6 kids, 16% of all children, were living in families with incomes below the official poverty line – an income threshold the government set that year at about US$26,500 for a family of four. Only 10% of Americans ages 18 to 64 and 9% of those 65 and up were experiencing poverty, according to the most recent data available.

The official child poverty rate ticks down when the economy grows and up during downturns. It stood at 17% in 1967 – just about the same as in 2020. In many recent years the rate hovered even higher – around 20%.

Researchers calculate the official poverty rate by adding up a household’s income and comparing it with a threshold of what is needed to survive. The government has calculated this rate the same way since the 1960s.

One of its shortcomings is that it excludes several sources of income, including tax credits and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which are intended to reduce poverty.

In 2011, the government began to calculate an alternative metric: the supplemental poverty measure. It includes SNAP and tax credits. It also uses thresholds based on the cost of living in different areas of the country. For a family of four, this threshold currently ranges from $24,000 to $35,000, depending on where a family lives and whether they own or rent housing. According to this alternative measure, 10% of children were living in poverty in 2020, the lowest rate ever recorded.

Depending on which measure you use, either 7 million or 11.7 million U.S. children lived in poverty in 2020.

Poverty is higher for children of color. The official poverty rate for Black children stood at 26%, and 23% for Hispanic children, while for white, non-Hispanic children it was 10%.

The Persistence of Childhood Poverty in the US – CounterPunch.org

 The gap between the pay of company executives and other workers is set to widen this year after falling during the height of the Covid pandemic, the High Pay Centre said.

 The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF),  Kristalina Georgieva, has said the war in Ukraine could result in a recession for more vulnerable countries.

“Since then the horizon has darkened,” she said, pointing out that the impact of the war in Ukraine was being amplified by a tightening of financial conditions, a rising US dollar and a slowdown in China. “2022 is going to be a tough year.”

Asked whether the IMF was forecasting a global recession, Georgieva replied: “Not at this point. It doesn’t mean one is out of the question…What we may see is recession in some countries that are weak to begin with. They haven’t recovered from the Covid crisis. They’re highly dependent on imports from Russia, of energy or food, and they have a somewhat weaker environment already.”

The IMF  had recently downgraded the growth prospects for 143 of its member states, which represent 80% of global output.

Georgieva said there had been a sense over the past week that the global economy was getting into rougher waters. The oil price had come down but “food prices continue to go up, up, up, up”. She said: “We can shrink the use of petrol when growth slows down but we have to eat every day. The anxiety about access to food at a reasonable price, globally, is hitting the roof.”

Jane Fraser, the chief executive of the US investment bank Citigroup, explained, “Europe is right in the middle of the storms from supply chains, from the energy crisis, and obviously just the proximity to some of the atrocities that are occurring in Ukraine,” she said.

War in Ukraine could cause recession in weaker economies, IMF boss warns | Davos | The Guardian

 Pets are big business in Japan.

 420,314  children and young people in February   were being treated for mental health problems – the highest number on record – prompting warnings of an unprecedented crisis in the well-being of under-18s.

Experts say Covid-19 has seriously exacerbated problems such as anxiety, depression and self-harm among school-age children and that the “relentless and unsustainable” ongoing rise in their need for help could overwhelm already stretched NHS services.

The total has risen by 147,853 since February 2020, a 54% increase, and by 80,096 over the last year alone, a jump of 24%. January’s tally of 411,132 cases was the first time the figure had topped 400,000.

Mental health charities fear the figures are the tip of the iceberg of the true number of people who need care, and that many more under-18s in distress are being denied help by arbitrary eligibility criteria.

“Open referrals” are under-18s who are being cared for by child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) or are waiting to see a specialist, having been assessed as needing help against treatment thresholds. GPs, teachers and mental health charities believe the criteria are too strict, exclude many who are deemed not ill enough, and amount to rationing of care. A survey of GPs published last month by the youth mental health charity stem4 found that half said CAMHS were rejecting half of referrals they made of under-18s suffering from anxiety, depression, conduct disorder and self-harm because their symptoms were not seen as severe enough. 

“There is an unprecedented crisis in young people’s mental health, further evidenced by these record numbers of young people needing help from the NHS,” said Olly Parker, the head of external affairs at Young Minds. “The record high number of children and young people receiving care from the NHS tells us that the crisis in young people’s mental health is a wave that’s breaking now.” He said many young people were reaching crisis point before could get the treatment they need.

Nihara Krause, a consultant clinical psychologist and the founder of stem4, said that while more under-18s were getting help, it was unclear from the figures how many received effective treatment. “Teachers and GPs say that children and mental health in mental health distress are either being rejected in record numbers because their difficulties do not meet the high threshold for treatment, or they are stuck on long waiting lists. These latest figures also lack any real detail to warrant claiming there has been a marked improvement in accessing effective treatment. They just show greater need.” She said not just the prevalence but also the severity and complexity of youth mental health problems had increased in recent years. In addition, Covid-induced loneliness, increased time spent online, disrupted routines and exposure to family stress have increased levels of distress.

Record 420,000 children a month in England treated for mental health problems | Mental health | The Guardian

 Buy something in a supermarket and there’s a good chance it will contain palm oil, an industry worth more than $50bn each year globally. The companies behind the country’s palm oil boom have seen their profits soar this year as global prices reached record highs. Indonesia’s super-rich list is already stacked with palm oil billionaires. The Widjaja family, who control Golden Agri-Resources, stand second place in Forbes’ rich list for Indonesia; Anthoni Salim, who is the CEO of the Salim Group, sits one below in third place. But the companies that sell it to major firms like Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg’s and Mondelēz are depriving indigenous communities of potentially millions of dollars of income. 

 Hospitals in Sri Lanka are forced to postpone life-saving procedures for their patients because they do not have the necessary drugs.

Sri Lanka imports more than 80 percent of its medical supplies but with foreign currency reserves running out because of the crisis, essential medications are disappearing from shelves and the healthcare system is close to collapse.

“It is very bad for cancer patients,” said Dr Roshan Amaratunga. “Sometimes, in the morning we plan for some surgeries but we may not be able to do on that particular day as supplies are not there.” If the situation does not improve quickly, several patients will be facing a virtual death sentence, he said.

Doctors say they are more worried than the patients or their relatives, as they are aware of the potential size of the problem and its impact on the wider population.

A government official working on procuring medical supplies said about 180 items were running out, including injections for dialysis patients, medicine for patients who have undergone transplants and certain cancer drugs.

Referring to the ubiquitous queues for petrol and cooking gas, Dr Vasan Ratnasingam, a spokesman for the Government Medical Officers’ Association, said the consequences for people awaiting treatment were so much more dire.

“If patients are in a queue for drugs, they will lose their lives,” said Ratnasingam.

‘Death sentence’: Doctors in Sri Lanka decry medicine shortage | Health News | Al Jazeera

 The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has released a worrying report, entitled “Environment of Peace: Security in a New Era of Risk.” 

Environment of Risk: Security in a New Era of Risk (sipri.org)

“A compound environmental crisis and a darkening security horizon are feeding each other in dangerous ways,” SIPRI’s researchers write. Felled forests, melting glaciers and polluted oceans are occurring simultaneously with an rise in the number of conflict-related deaths, arms expenditures and increasing numbers of people at risk of starvation. Pandemics pose further dangers.

Lacking a global plan, the world is “stumbling” into these intertwined dangers, according to SIPRI.

“Nature and peace are so closely linked that damaging one damages the other. By the same reasoning, enhancing one enhances the other,” SIPRI’s director, Dan Smith, explained.

SIPRI: From climate to war, world entering a critical era | Europe | News and current affairs from around the continent | DW | 22.05.2022

“The number of people forced to flee conflict, violence, human rights violations and persecution has now crossed the staggering milestone of 100 million for the first time on record, propelled by the war in Ukraine and other deadly conflicts,” said UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.

The figures combine refugees, asylum-seekers, as well as more than 50 million people displaced inside their own countries.

The 100 million figure amounts to more than one percent of the global population, while only 13 countries have a bigger population than the number of forcibly displaced people in the world.

UNHCR said the number of forcibly displaced people rose toward 90 million by the end of 2021, spurred by violence in Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Myanmar, Nigeria, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 and since then, more than eight million people have been displaced within the country, while more than six million refugees have fled across the borders.

UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi, said, “This must serve as a wake-up call to resolve and prevent destructive conflicts, end persecution, and address the underlying causes that force innocent people to flee their homes.”

He continued, “Compassion is alive and we need a similar mobilisation for all crises around the world. But ultimately, humanitarian aid is a palliative, not a cure. To reverse this trend, the only answer is peace and stability so that innocent people are not forced to gamble between acute danger at home or precarious flight and exile.”

Grandi called for those countries to lift any remaining pandemic-related asylum restrictions, saying they contravene a fundamental human right.

“I am worried that measures enacted on the pretext of responding to Covid-19 are being used as cover to exclude and deny asylum to people fleeing violence and persecution.” 

Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) chief Jan Egeland told reporters, “It has never been as bad as this. The world is falling apart.”

Number of displaced people passes 100 million for first time, says UN (france24.com)

 The largest private suppliers of children’s homes and foster care places in England, Wales and Scotland make excessive profits says a Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) report. Data on 15 large providers from 2016 to 2020 showed steady operating profit margins averaging 22.6%. The CMA says a well-functioning market should generate returns to investors of up to 6%, but the largest children’s home providers make about double that.