David L. Hackett, Led Efforts on Poverty and Juvenile Crime, Dies at 84

The cause was complications of diabetes, his son-in-law Kevin Ellis said.

Mr. Hackett, a close friend of Robert F. Kennedy’s since their prep school days at Milton Academy in Massachusetts, was executive director of the President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime from 1961 to 1964. The committee was created by President John F. Kennedy in May 1961 after Mr. Hackett accompanied Robert Kennedy, then the attorney general, on a shirt-sleeve tour of poor New York neighborhoods, interviewing members of street gangs.

President Kennedy declared a five-year “total attack” on juvenile delinquency. With Mr. Hackett as director and an initial budget of $10 million, the committee provided grants to state, local and private agencies for programs offering counseling to juvenile offenders, connecting them to job opportunities and training youth counselors.

In an interview on Tuesday, Joseph P. Kennedy II, Robert Kennedy’s eldest son and a former Massachusetts congressman, said Mr. Hackett’s work had far-reaching impact.

“The outgrowth of that effort was the establishment of over a thousand agencies across the country,” Mr. Kennedy said. “Every major city and many rural communities now have community action agencies that began with the juvenile delinquency program and grew into the broader mission of fighting poverty.”

In 1962, Mr. Hackett was also chairman of a study group calling for the creation of a National Service Corps, a domestic version of the Peace Corps. That concept contributed to the establishment two years later of Volunteers in Service to America, or Vista, as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s war on poverty.

After leaving government service, Mr. Hackett was director of the R.F.K. Memorial, a nonprofit organization established after the assassination of Robert Kennedy, which focused on poverty and human rights issues. In that capacity he created the Youth Policy Institute, which tracked federal spending and policy on youth issues, family planning and job training and also published an influential monthly newsletter. It now runs more than 100 programs around the country, with the goal of lifting families out of poverty.

David Low Hackett was born in Dedham, Mass., on Nov. 12, 1926, the fourth of five children of William and Louisa Haydock Hackett. His father was a prominent Boston banker.

Mr. Hackett is survived by his wife of 55 years, the former Judith Williams; two sons, Christopher Hackett and Robert Hackett; three daughters, Louisa Hackett, Kimberly Hackett and Victoria Hackett; and 11 grandchildren.

“Dave was my dad’s best friend,” Joseph Kennedy said.

Mr. Hackett and Robert Kennedy met at Milton Academy in 1942, where David was a star on the hockey, football and baseball teams.

“R.F.K. could have remained an outcast” but for that friendship, Evan Thomas wrote in his 2000 biography, “Robert Kennedy: His Life” (Simon & Schuster).

Milton’s “tone and culture were High WASP,” the book says, “unwelcoming to Catholic new money.” And yet the “schoolboy god” — David — embraced the shy newcomer, who was taken by his new friend’s renegade antics.

In the summer of 1943, Mr. Hackett spent six weeks taking courses at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. There he befriended a budding author, John Knowles, who in 1959 would write the coming-of-age novel “A Separate Peace.” One of the main characters — Phineas, a carefree athlete whose leg is broken in a fall from a tree — was modeled on David, Mr. Knowles said. After prep school and service as a paratrooper in Europe during World War II, Mr. Hackett attended McGill University in Montreal, where he played hockey. He was selected for the United States Olympic hockey team in 1952 but could not compete because of a broken ankle.

In 1960, after a stint as editor of The Montrealer magazine in Canada, Mr. Hackett joined John Kennedy’s presidential campaign, serving as its director of correspondence and manager of “the boiler room,” the operation that tracked the leanings of delegates before and during the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles.

In 1968, he ran the boiler room for Robert Kennedy’s presidential bid and was in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968, when Mr. Kennedy was assassinated. Mr. Hackett was a pallbearer at his friend’s funeral.

 

Youth, Mobility and Poverty Help Drive Cellphone-Only Status

At the other extreme? People in Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Jersey are still holding on to their landlines, and they have the lowest concentrations of people whose homes use only cellphones.

The study, released Wednesday, was part of an annual survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics. Information from interviews was blended with census data to draw a map of cellular-only use by state.

Its findings reflect patterns of consumer behavior that are driven by age, mobility and, in a strange twist, poverty. According to Stephen Blumberg, the researcher who conducted the study, nearly 40 percent of all adults living in poverty use only cellphones, compared with about 21 percent of adults with higher incomes.

There appear to be many reasons for this. Cellular phones have become more affordable. The barrier to owning one is lower with pay-as-you-go plans. Some states allow subsidies for low-income residents to be applied to wireless bills. And increasingly, those who cannot afford both types of phones choose their cellular phone.

It is, of course, a long way from the days when cellphones belonged exclusively to wealthy business people. In fact, the wealthiest areas — New England, New York, California — had some of the lowest concentrations of cellular-only households.

Rhode Island and New Jersey were the lowest at 12.8 percent of adults and children in cellular-only households. Just above was Connecticut at 13.6. New York was at 17 percent and California at 18 percent.

By contrast, Arkansas had the highest concentration of people in cell-only households, at 35.2 percent. Next was Mississippi at 35.1 percent, Texas at 32.5 percent, North Dakota at 32.3 percent, Idaho at 31.7 percent and Kentucky at 31.5 percent.

Those who were more nomadic were more likely to use only cellular phones. Forty-seven percent of renters were wireless-only, compared with 15 percent of owners, Mr. Blumberg said.

Age is another important factor. Forty-four percent of people between the ages of 18 and 30 are cellular-only users, compared with just 18 percent of those 31 and older, Mr. Blumberg said.

Some of the places with the lowest concentrations of cellular-only households were also the oldest. According to Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociology professor at Queens College, Connecticut was the seventh-oldest state in the country by median age in 2009, Rhode Island was the eighth and New Jersey was the 11th.

“It would not surprise me if that phrase ‘home telephone number’ goes the way of rotary dial telephones and party lines,” Mr. Blumberg said. “Instead of teaching a child a home phone number, the child will be taught Mom’s number and Dad’s number and Grandma’s number.”

California seemed to be an exception to the rule. It had one of the lower concentrations of cellular-phone only households, even though its median age makes it the sixth youngest state, according to 2009 census data.

James E. Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University, said one reason could be the generous subsidies the state gives low-income residents for local calling on landlines.

While some states participate in a plan that allows subsidies to be applied to cellular service, California does not, something that masks what would otherwise be much higher rates of cellphone-only households, Dr. Katz said.

Another factor appeared to be the prevalence of landlines. In 2000, Mississippi was No. 2, after Puerto Rico, for the portion of residents who did not have a home phone, according to census data. Arkansas was No. 4. In both states, the number was less than 7 percent of all households.

Robert Gebeloff contributed reporting from New York.

 

Youth, Mobility and Poverty Help Drive Cellphone-Only Status

At the other extreme? People in Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Jersey are still holding on to their landlines, and they have the lowest concentrations of people whose homes use only cellphones.

The study, released Wednesday, was part of an annual survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics. Information from interviews was blended with census data to draw a map of cellular-only use by state.

Its findings reflect patterns of consumer behavior that are driven by age, mobility and, in a strange twist, poverty. According to Stephen Blumberg, the researcher who conducted the study, nearly 40 percent of all adults living in poverty use only cellphones, compared with about 21 percent of adults with higher incomes.

There appear to be many reasons for this. Cellular phones have become more affordable. The barrier to owning one is lower with pay-as-you-go plans. Some states allow subsidies for low-income residents to be applied to wireless bills. And increasingly, those who cannot afford both types of phones choose their cellular phone.

It is, of course, a long way from the days when cellphones belonged exclusively to wealthy business people. In fact, the wealthiest areas — New England, New York, California — had some of the lowest concentrations of cellular-only households.

Rhode Island and New Jersey were the lowest at 12.8 percent of adults and children in cellular-only households. Just above was Connecticut at 13.6. New York was at 17 percent and California at 18 percent.

By contrast, Arkansas had the highest concentration of people in cell-only households, at 35.2 percent. Next was Mississippi at 35.1 percent, Texas at 32.5 percent, North Dakota at 32.3 percent, Idaho at 31.7 percent and Kentucky at 31.5 percent.

Those who were more nomadic were more likely to use only cellular phones. Forty-seven percent of renters were wireless-only, compared with 15 percent of owners, Mr. Blumberg said.

Age is another important factor. Forty-four percent of people between the ages of 18 and 30 are cellular-only users, compared with just 18 percent of those 31 and older, Mr. Blumberg said.

Some of the places with the lowest concentrations of cellular-only households were also the oldest. According to Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociology professor at Queens College, Connecticut was the seventh-oldest state in the country by median age in 2009, Rhode Island was the eighth and New Jersey was the 11th.

“It would not surprise me if that phrase ‘home telephone number’ goes the way of rotary dial telephones and party lines,” Mr. Blumberg said. “Instead of teaching a child a home phone number, the child will be taught Mom’s number and Dad’s number and Grandma’s number.”

California seemed to be an exception to the rule. It had one of the lower concentrations of cellular-phone only households, even though its median age makes it the sixth youngest state, according to 2009 census data.

James E. Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University, said one reason could be the generous subsidies the state gives low-income residents for local calling on landlines.

While some states participate in a plan that allows subsidies to be applied to cellular service, California does not, something that masks what would otherwise be much higher rates of cellphone-only households, Dr. Katz said.

Another factor appeared to be the prevalence of landlines. In 2000, Mississippi was No. 2, after Puerto Rico, for the portion of residents who did not have a home phone, according to census data. Arkansas was No. 4. In both states, the number was less than 7 percent of all households.

Robert Gebeloff contributed reporting from New York.