Millions More California Children Slip into Poverty

Won't someone think of the children? The Great Recession has.

The number of California children living in poverty has grown by 2 million from 2007 to 2010, according to Census figures. That's a 30 percent increase -- but 20 percent of all California children, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

To have 1/5 of all children in the state living in poverty -- which is defined as an income of less than $22,000 for a family of four --is "overwhelming," experts said.

In the Bay Area, 137,000 children fit this description of poverty. However, this area is -- you may have noticed -- more expensive than the rest of the country and much of the rest of the state, meaning the true picture could be more dire.

Poor kids have a tougher time for reasons beyond lacking iPods, iPhones, and eyeglasses. "The more that families are struggling and experiencing this poverty, the more likely they are to be experiencing these stresses," Christopher Wimer, associate director of the Stanford Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality, told the newspaper. Going to school hungry or without a stable home can lead to "toxic stress," which leads to a host of cognitive and other disabilities, the newspaper said.

So there's the problem -- how we gonna solve it, kids?