{"id":4300,"date":"2012-12-13T04:07:03","date_gmt":"2012-12-13T10:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=4300"},"modified":"2012-12-13T04:07:03","modified_gmt":"2012-12-13T10:07:03","slug":"report-one-quarter-of-israelis-and-37-of-children-live-in-poverty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/report-one-quarter-of-israelis-and-37-of-children-live-in-poverty\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: one-quarter of Israelis &#8211; and 37% of children &#8211; live in poverty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By BEN SALES<\/p>\n<p>TEL AVIV (JTA) &#8212; The numbers tell a consistent storyline: Nearly one in four Israelis lives in poverty.\u00a0A report last week by Israel\u2019s National Insurance Institute showed that 1.8 million of Israel\u2019s 8 million people live below the poverty line.<\/p>\n<p>In 2011, the year for which the report was issued, more than 36 percent of Israeli children were poor, a jump of 1 percentage point from the previous year. Poverty afflicts more than 400,000 Israeli families, including nearly 7 percent of families with two working people.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4302\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Food-Line.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4302\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4302 lazyload\" title=\"Food line\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Food-Line-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Food-Line-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Food-Line-1024x682.jpg 1024w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/200;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4302\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4302 \" title=\"Food line\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Food-Line-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Food-Line-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Food-Line-1024x682.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-4302\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">People waiting in line for food packages at a distribution center for the needy in Lod, near Tel Aviv, September 2012. (Yonatan Sindel \/ Flash90 \/ JTA)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Among developed countries, Israel had the second-highest poverty rate, behind only Mexico, according to statistics from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a very large segment of the Israeli population that isn\u2019t receiving tools they can use in the modern economy,\u201d said Dan Ben-David, executive director of Israel\u2019s Taub Center, a think tank that released its \u201cState of the Nation\u201d report last month analyzing Israeli socioeconomic policy. \u201cIt\u2019s not only bad for them, it\u2019s also become a huge problem for the country over time. They\u2019re dragging down our productivity and growth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Israel\u2019s poverty rate stems in large part from two sectors of the population that are especially poor: Israeli Arabs and haredi Orthodox Jews, who have poverty rates of 53 and 54 percent, respectively. Israeli Arabs constitute about a quarter of all Israelis, while approximately 10 percent of the country is haredi Orthodox.<\/p>\n<p>The Israeli government defines the poverty line as individuals with expendable income of about $9,500 annually after taxes, which is approximately 50 percent of the median Israeli expendable income. Exactly 24.8 percent of Israelis, or 19.9 percent of families, live in poverty.<\/p>\n<p>By comparison, the United States is fourth-highest on the OECD list with a family poverty rate of about 17 percent, according to the OECD&#8217;s standard. Twenty-three percent of U.S. children live in poverty.<\/p>\n<p>In Israel, poverty usually does not mean starvation. Unemployment in Israel is at 6 percent, and one of the country\u2019s socialist legacies is a strong safety net for the poor, sick and elderly. Israeli economic policy has, however, turned more conservative in recent years.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4303\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Homeless.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4303\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4303 lazyload\" title=\".\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Homeless-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Homeless-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Homeless-1024x682.jpg 1024w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/200;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4303\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4303 \" title=\".\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Homeless-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Homeless-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Homeless-1024x682.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-4303\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A homeless man in Jerusalem taking cover in an entrance of a building to protect himself from a downpour, November 2012. (Oren Nahshon \/ FLASH90 \/ JTA)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Shlomo Yitzhaki, Israel\u2019s government statistician, says the higher-than-average birthrate among haredi and Arab Israelis is the principal reason for their high poverty rates.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you look at income by family size, as the families get bigger, from five members and up, total family income gets lower,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Arabs and haredim also are exempt from Israel\u2019s compulsory military service, which makes it harder for them to find work in a culture where army service often serves as a career starting point, allowing people to network and in some cases gain specialized skill sets.<\/p>\n<p>Ben-David says Israel\u2019s problems aren\u2019t limited to minorities and that the state needs to invest in education and transportation infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>In the summer of 2011, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets to protest the high cost of living and growing wealth inequality in the country, which were seen as hurting the middle class. Though the issue has received much attention in Israel\u2019s current election campaign, it does not dominate headlines the way it did during the 2011 protests.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a new commission of government ministers to streamline socioeconomic reforms. He did not specify what the reforms would be.<\/p>\n<p>Ben-David said Israel\u2019s security needs often make it hard to find enough money to address the country\u2019s other challenges. Defense spending makes up about one-fifth of the total budget, and social service spending adds up to about two-fifths.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat we have such a high defense budget means we have to be judicious with the rest,\u201d he told JTA.<\/p>\n<p>Nonprofit groups here have stepped in to alleviate poverty in Israel, including many managed by haredim. But Yoram Sagi Zaks, founder of the Movement for the War on Poverty in Israel, says the government still needs to take primary responsibility for helping the poor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe nonprofits help people, but they need to supplement the state, not replace the state,\u201d Zaks said. \u201cPoverty is not a fate. This is not something we need to get used to.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Report%3A%20one-quarter%20of%20Israelis%20-%20and%2037%25%20of%20children%20-%20live%20in%20poverty\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[8781,8790,8795,1476,8788,1475],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4300"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4300"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4304,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4300\/revisions\/4304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}