Minnesota data from the recent American Community Survey confirm what overflowing homeless shelters and weary food-shelf volunteers around the state have been telling us: Our economy is failing an alarming number of Minnesota families and their children.The new data track the Great Recession, showing the overall poverty rate in Minnesota rising from 9.6 percent in 2008 to 11.6 percent in 2010. The child poverty rate rose from 11.4 percent in 2008 to 15.2 percent in 2010. More alarming still, this only continues a trend that began well before the recession; child poverty has increased 56 percent since 2000.

One Minnesota child in seven now lives in poverty -- 192,000 Minnesota kids.

When we break down the statistics by race, the picture of inequality gets clearer. Today, 17.8 percent of Asians are living in poverty, as are 24.4 percent of Latinos and 37.2 percent of blacks. In the last year, poverty among American Indians jumped from 30.7 percent to 39.5 percent.

Do you hear the alarm bells? Does anyone seriously think we can be a healthy, prosperous, competitive and peaceful state if one in seven children (and a much higher rate among children of color) lives in economic deprivation?

These new poverty statistics cut right through the distorted image of people in living in poverty because of their individual weakness or their bad choices. The vast majority of poor and low-income people live in households with employment. Many toil in the 17 percent of Minnesota jobs that pay a wage too meager to lift a family of four above the poverty line (about $22,000 per year).

For many years running, productivity gains by workers have been snatched up by the powerful few able to monetize the productivity of our workforce for themselves. Seizing what is earned by others to the detriment of the whole economy is class warfare worthy of protest.

Don't care about economic justice? Fine. Then let me suggest that it will be enormously expensive for everyone to live in a Minnesota where more than one in seven children grow up in poverty. New research finds that the toxic stress of economic hardship has a profound, lasting impact on the lives of children.

It is now believed that sustained toxic stress, especially in early years, can inhibit brain development and lead to serious long-term consequences. Moving from basement to living room to homeless shelter; not having enough to eat; growing up in neighborhoods where parents worry about stray bullets; changing schools and teachers and classmates over and over again -- these are the sorts of stressors we know to be damaging.

Children raised in poverty are more likely to drop out of high school; require economic aid and social services as adults; exhibit hopelessness; fall into patterns of criminal behavior, or be under- or unemployed.

We can't afford any of this.

One of the proven methods of combating poverty through state policy is investing in early childhood education and subsidizing quality child care for working low-income parents. This past year the Legislature, under the stress of a $5 billion shortfall, took the opposite approach, reducing funding to child care assistance, child protective services and myriad child-centered services. Minnesota went backwards.

It's time to declare a new beginning -- a renewed commitment in Minnesota to end poverty for the sake of stable communities, a productive and educated workforce, less income inequality, healthier children, less crime, less incarceration, less human loss and less expenses.

In October, hundreds of Minnesota faith communities observe Children's Sabbath, highlighting the needs of children in our state. We invite everyone to join Children's Defense Fund and the Interfaith Children's Advocacy Network in promoting this annual multifaith observance.

Any principled accountant, economist, or theologian would tell us to first focus on the greatest injustices by attacking child poverty rates and poverty rates in communities of color. Hashtag or not, we should occupy this.

Brian Rusche is executive director of the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition, a statewide, interfaith public-policy group sponsored by Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Islamic organizations.