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Folbre Accounts for Kids in Economix Blog

Nancy Folbre, UMass Amherst Economics Professor
Nancy Folbre, UMass Amherst Economics Professor

In her most recent New York Times Economix Blog, UMass Economics Professor Nancy Folbre discusses public spending on children and why overall, we spend so little on them. She sees two trends in public spending on children: it amounts to about 2.2 percent of the national gross domestic product, compared to 5.3 percent spent on the elderly; and spending per child goes up after age 6 despite research showing that younger children benefit from early-childhood education. (New York Times Economix blog, 1/18/10)

January 18, 2010
Remembering the Little People:  Accounting for Kids
By Nancy Folbre

[excerpt]

Largely as a result of differences in public subsidies, full-time, year-round child care for young children costs more than public university tuition in 44 states.

Evidence also suggests that young children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of poverty. Yet 19 percent of children in the United States lived in poverty in 2009.

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