There has been a "significant decline" in economic well-being for low-income children and families over the past decade as the official child poverty rate grew by 18 percent and poverty levels for families with children increased in 38 states, according to a new study. Economic and housing difficulties are the main culprits, reports the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a private charitable organization that focuses on disadvantaged children.
“The recent recession has wiped out many of the economic gains for children that occurred in the late 1990s,” said Laura Speer, associate director for policy reform and data at the Casey Foundation, as the report was released Wednesday. “Nearly 8 million children lived with at least one parent who was actively seeking employment but was unemployed in 2010. This is double the number in 2007, just three years earlier.”
“The news about the number of children who were affected by foreclosure in the United States is also very troubling because these economic challenges greatly hinder the well-being of families and the nation,” said Ms. Speer.
In the United States as a whole, nearly 15 million children (20 percent) live in poverty. A broader definition of economic straits – $43,512 a year, or twice the federal poverty line for a family of four, “a minimum needed for most families to make ends meet,” as Speer puts it – includes 31 million children, or 42 percent of the total.
According to the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University, low-income rates for young children are higher than those for older children – 43 percent of children under age six live in low-income families, compared with 37 percent of children over age six.
But the problem is not evenly distributed. New Hampshire (11 percent), Minnesota (14 percent), and Massachusetts (13 percent) have the least child poverty, while Alabama (25 percent), Louisiana (24 percent), and Mississippi (31 percent) have the most.
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