Poor American kids

More than 20 percent of all children in the U.S. are living below the poverty line, according to 2010 Child and Youth Well-Being report latest estimates. This rate is the highest it has been in 20 years, which translates to 15.6 million children living in poverty.

7.41 million children are living in “extreme poverty” —defined as less than 50 percent of the poverty line; about 20 million children have families without secure employment; the majority of these households don’t have secure sources of food; and some 500,000 children are homeless. African American and Latino children, in particular, are living in poverty.
And in the last 3 years an additional 750,000 children live in households that don't have access to enough safe and nutritious food. And eating more processed and fast foods means a potential increase in obesity and all the problems that go with that. People who grow up under lots of stress have higher rates of cancer, liver disease, respiratory disease and other ailments.

Research shows that conditions for children deteriorated through 2009 and predicts that poverty will continue to grow as a result of the hard economic times.

Pawnshops, payday lenders, storefronts offering high-rate mortgages, tax preparers promising instant cash refunds have sprouted throughout America's poorest communities over the past two decades, eventually saturating the slums and expanding outward into the suburbs. Advance America by 2006 had reached 24,000 stores -- more than the combined number of McDonalds and Burger Kings in the U.S. Check Into Cash - a 1,200-store chain.Cash America with 600-plus pawnshops. In "Broke, USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc. — How the Working Poor Became Big Business," business journalist Gary Rivlin reveals consumers spent $11 billion on payday loans and check cashing fees in 2008 — as much as they spent on movie tickets that year. They spent an additional $7 billion on rent-to-own stores, which attract cash-strapped customers with low entry fees, but over time sell home furnishings and electronics at markups far higher than any conventional retailer.A 'buy here, pay here' customer is typically paying an annual interest rate of between 18 and 25 percent but there are a lot of people out there who don't have any other option.

A customer base with a sense of desperation and few options: now what can be better for business than that? Aaron Rents, for instance, one of the giants of the rent-to-own field, saw its stock price soar by 38 percent in 2008, though it was probably the market's worst year since the 1930s. "There will always be cash- and credit-strained customers out there," CEO Robin Loudermilk told The Wall Street Journal "That's why our business is so strong."