By Sheila Kuehl
In my last essay, I compared the poor families in California to an array of long-suffering silent movie heroines who were threatened by heartless landlords or mustachioed villains and inevitably rescued in the nick of time by the super hero of the day (much like the spate of films we’re all shelling out big bucks to see). Unfortunately, there is no end of the reel rescue for the millions of kids and families further abandoned by this year’s budget.
In a state where the rate of children living in poverty increased by more than 5% between 2009-10 and just continues to grow, where the numbers of single mothers with jobs fell by more than 10% between 2007 and 2010 and is now much worse, we, nevertheless, seem to return again and again to slashing the social services area of the budget in order to balance it.