Children in Poverty: Profile, Trends, and Issues (CRS Report for Congress)
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| Release Date |
Revised Nov. 25, 2008 |
| Report Number |
RL32682 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
Vee Burke, Thomas Gabe, and Gene Falk, Domestic Social Policy Division |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
| Older Revisions |
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Premium Dec. 1, 2004 (38 pages, $24.95)
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Summary:
Child poverty persists as a social and economic concern in the United States. In 2007 12.8 million children (17.6% all children) were considered poor under the official U.S. definition. In records dating back to 1959, the incidence of poverty among related children in families has ranged from a peak of 26.9% in 1959 to a low of 13.8% in 1969. Poverty affects a child's life chances; by almost any indicator, poor children fare worse than their nonpoor counterparts.
Family living arrangements, indicated by the presence of just one or both parents, greatly affect the chances that a child is poor. In 2007, 43.0% of children in female-headed families were poor, compared to 8.5% of children in married-couple families. In that year, 24% of children were living in female-headed families, more than double the share who lived in such families when the overall child poverty rate was at its historical low (1969). Children who are racial or ethnic minorities are at particular risk of being poor. In 2007, a little more than one-third of black children (34.2%) and almost three out of ten Hispanic children (28.3%) were poor, compared to about one in ten white non-Hispanic children (9.7%).
Work is the principal means by which families with children support themselves. Without family earnings, a child is almost certain to be poor. However, earnings often fail to overcome poverty. In 2007, about one-third (32.4%) of all poor children lived with at least one adult who was a full-time, full-year worker; another one-third were in families with a worker who either worked part-year or (less likely) part-time; another third lived in families without an adult who worked during the year. Higher child poverty rates were observed for those whose parents had less, rather than more, education. Children of younger parents, with less potential time and experience in the workforce, were more likely to be poor than children of older parents. Additionally, dramatic gains have occurred in recent years in work by lone mothersâespecially among those with preschool children. Employment rates of single mothers with children under age 3 rose from 35.1% in March 1993 to 59.1% in March 2000, but have since remained below their 2000 level, standing at 54.5% in March 2008. Nonetheless, many of these working single mothers (and their children) remained poor.
The social safety net for children consists of (1) earnings-based social insurance programs and (2) need-based transfers of cash and noncash benefits. Need-tested benefits have undergone a radical transformation during the past 20 years, capped by the 1996 welfare reform law. Cash welfare caseloads have plummeted since the reforms of the mid-1990s, so that many families receiving need-tested aid only receive noncash benefits (e.g., Medicaid and food stamps) whose value is not reflected in official poverty statistics. Further, the welfare reforms of the mid-1990s were accompanied by expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which supplements the earnings of low-income families with children. (The value of the EITC is also not considered in official poverty statistics.) The result has been to curtail benefit availability for nonworking families while raising the returns to work. This report will be updated annually, when new Census Bureau data are released.
