How many children are poor?

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National statistics on this question are readily available, but it is difficult to obtain accurate, summary data concerning child poverty at the state and local level, and among particular groups, because so few children are involved. Instead, we must put together statistics from a number of different data sources, some official, some produced by private agencies and organizations. To increase the accuracy and reliability of estimates for small areas and groups, agencies and organizations often resort to three-year averages.

Official figures on poverty in the United States derive from two sources: the decennial census, which provides a snapshot every ten years, and the annual Current Population Survey (CPS). Because the census long-form questionnaire, which asks about household income, is given to a very large sample (one of every six households), the decennial census provides good information about the percentage of children who are poor in geographic areas as small as census tracts (which on average contain 4,000-5,000 people). But toward the end of each decade, information gathered in the preceding census appears increasingly dated, especially in areas of rapid social and demographic change. Reports from the 2000 census for different ethnic and age-defined groups are now widely available through the Bureau of the Census itself and much census 2000 data can be found through other Web sites, including the National Center for Children in Poverty, the Children's Defense Fund, and the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Kids Count project.

In 2008, 19.0 percent of individuals under age 18 lived in poverty.[1]   Poverty rates among black and Hispanic children are much higher than among white children and have been so since the Census Bureau began making separate estimates by race (see figure).

Using CPS data, the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University has published reports on trends in regional estimates of the rate of poverty among children living in the United States. See, for example, Basic Facts about Low-Income Children, Birth to Age 18, Ayana Douglas-Hall and Michelle Chau (2008); and Low-Income Children in the United States: National and State Trend Data, 1997-2007, Michelle Chau and Ayana Douglas-Hall (2008) [2].

State Poverty Rates for Children

The number of respondents within each state is too small to allow for the production of official state child poverty figures based on CPS data. The Children's Defense Fund publishes Children in the States Factsheets (data in the present Web version include those most current as of November 2008) on child well-being for each state. It ranks states according to indicators such as prenatal care and infant mortality, child poverty, and per-pupil expenditures in public schools.

There are at least two sources of annual estimates of child poverty in each state, the Kids Count project and the U.S. Census Bureau. The Kids Count project reports many indicators of American children's health and well-being each year for the entire country and for each state separately—see the complete Kids Count report for 2009. Kids Count has also created interactive online databases of statistics regarding children and families, including state profiles.

Census data assembled by Kids Count [3] show that the rate of poverty among children under 18 was, in the nation, 18 percent. Child poverty was over 9 percent in every state. In four states, over a quarter of all children under age 18 were poor: Arkansas (26 percent), Louisiana (27 percent), Mississippi (29 percent), and New Mexico (25 percent). In Wisconsin, 14 percent of children under 18 were poor.

The reports for Wisconsin—the WisKids Count Data Books, which show child poverty figures and other indicators of children's well-being—are available from the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families and are posted on the Council's Web site.

The second source of data on child poverty rates within states is the Census Bureau, which regularly estimates state, county-level and school-district level poverty data from the annual CPS for very young children (under age 5) and for children aged 5-17 (2007 is the most recent year for these "small-area estimates," which were released in December 2008).

[1] Bureau of the Census, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2008, Report P60-236.
[2] In October 2008, the NCCP also published Fact Sheets, Basic Facts About Low-Income Children: Birth to Age 3, Birth to Age 6, and Birth to Age 18.
[3] The data for this measure come from the 2000 and 2001 Supplementary Survey and the 2002 through 2007 American Community Survey (ACS).