$500 Billion Every Year

Poverty is costly. That's the bottom line of a report commissioned by The Center for American Progress and released on Wednesday. The New York Times reports that children who grow up poor cost the economy up to $500 billion a in lost productivity, increased health care cost and increased criminal behavior. More and more, there is agreement that investing in eliminating childhood poverty makes good economic sense.

Money alone is not the answer. Changes in actions, neighborhoods and parenting are needed.

Of the 37 million people who live in poverty in this country, more than 17% of those are children. In Georgia, one of every five children live in poverty. As John Edwards would say, that's just wrong. We can do better.