Poverty and Children in the United States

By Maegan Clark

October 3, 2019

Last Updated: August 18, 2011

If you’ve been keeping up with the Heifer blog lately, you’ve read stories about: hunger and poverty globally, the drought and famine in the Horn of Africa, how we are working in Sierra Leone, Honduras and Zambia. Today it’s time to discuss what’s going on in our own back yard.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation published a report on Wednesday which found that child poverty has increased in 38 states from 2000 to 2009 leaving 14.7 million children poor.

The report went on to say that 5.3 million children have been affected by foreclosures in the U.S. economy and the increase of children living in a family with no parent with full-time employment was 31 percent in 2009 compared to 27 percent in 2008.

A child living in poverty doesn’t mean simply living in an unstable environment; it means that children will likely suffer academically, economically and socially long after their living environments have stabilized. For a family of four, the poverty level this year is set at $22,350.

Though the report did say that infant mortality, child and teen deaths and high school dropout rates have declined, the number of unhealthy babies has increased. It’s hard to see poverty ending in America when 9.1% of U.S. workers are still unemployed and consumer prices rising 0.5% in July alone because of the increase of cost in gas, food and shelter.

Though poverty doesn't look the same in the U.S. as it does globally, it does beg the question, with 1 in 5 children living in poverty, when will it end?