Security for America's Children: Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Conference of NASI

Nothing less than the future of our society is at stake in the questions this volume addresses: how to provide security for America's children, and how to design public policies to improve the circumstances in which children grow up. Over 20 percent of children are poor, and 13 percent lack health insurance coverage. Especially in the inner cities, many children are not receiving good health care, a decent education, and other vital social services. The National Academy of Social Insurance assembled two hundred experts in income security, health insurance, and the needs of children to discuss these problems. The proceedings of that conference reveal the high degree of informed consensus around the need to check the rate of casualties among children. They also demonstrate that many of the policy tools needed to accomplish this objective are already available. An introductory essay summarizes the papers and identifies the major themes that emerged from the deliberations.