By
Debra Watson
13 July 2013
The number of children living in families with incomes below the
official poverty level rose to 16.4 million in 2011, according to the
annual Kids Count report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation released
this month. This is an increase of one full percentage point in one
year, up to 23 percent from 22 percent (15.7 million) in 2010. More than
one in four children under five—26 percent—were officially poor in
2011.
The increase of 700,000 children in poverty in the US between 2010
and 2011 was almost as high as the one million increase the year before.
Data from the foundation’s report last year indicated child poverty
had already soared upward by nearly 30 percent from 2000 to 2010. The
number of children living in poverty in the US went up by 4.2 million
between 2000 and 2011.
“Kids Count Databook 2013” compares the change in several factors of
child well being between 2005 and 2011 in order to compare pre- and
post-Great Recession measures. Between 2005 and 2011 child poverty
increased by 3 million children.
The official poverty level of $22,811 for a family of two adults and
two children leaves out nearly half the families that suffer from
deprivation. According to the foundation: “families need an income of
roughly twice the official poverty level to meet their basic needs,
including housing, food, transportation, health care and child care.”
Nearly half of all children, 45 percent, live in low-income families
that earn less than twice the poverty threshold.
The increases in child poverty continued well after the Obama
administration officially declared that the recession had ended. The
recession officially lasted for a year and a half, from December 2007 to
June 2009. But after a similar period of eighteen months of “recovery”
child poverty was still climbing rapidly.
This was so even as the national unemployment rate registered a
gradual decline. The report ties lack of family income to two related
economic indicators exacerbated by the continuing economic crisis: the
availability of regular employment and housing costs.
One-third of American children live in households without secure
employment, i.e., no parent has full-time, year-round employment, up
from 27 percent in 2008. Part of this is due to the growing trend of
replacing full-time jobs with part-time work .
The authors also note in the 2013 report: “Although the overall
unemployment rate continues to decline, five years after the crisis,
unemployment remains high, at 7.5 percent, with almost 12 million
Americans out of work. Furthermore, long-term unemployment is
increasingly a problem: A total of 4.5 million workers were unemployed
for more than six months, and more than 3 million were without work for a
year or more.”
Nationally, over forty percent of children live in households that
spend more than the benchmark of affordability for housing each month of
30 percent of household income. This is up from 37 percent in 2005.
The report gathered data from various government agencies to rate
each state on 16 different criteria. The criteria were split into four
different categories: economic well being, family and community, health,
and education. All four indicators revealed a dramatic increase in
economic stress on children. National and statewide data were compared
to previous years and states were compared to each other.
One important finding in the report is the vast regional inequality
between states. They write: “States in the Southeast, Southwest and
Appalachia—where the poorest states are located—populate the bottom of
the overall rankings. In fact, with the exception of California, the 17
lowest-ranked states are located in these regions. For the first time,
New Mexico ranked worst among states for overall child well being in
this year’s KIDS COUNT Data Book. Along with Nevada and Arizona, states
in the Southwest now occupy three of the five lowest rankings for child
well-being.”
Detailed data for each state is available. The difference between the
top- and bottom-ranked states is quite large in most categories. For
example, twelve percent of children in New Hampshire live in poverty, as
compared to one in three in Mississippi.
The data was also broken down for other categories such as
married-couple and single-parent households and African-American and
Hispanic households. The percentage of children living in single-parent
families continued to climb. In 2011 more than one-third (35 percent) of
all children lived in a single-parent household, as did 37 percent of
infants and toddlers.
A comment in the report indicates the primary difficulty for children
in single-parent families is poverty. They comment: “Such children are
at higher risk of negative outcomes later in life because they typically
have fewer economic and emotional resources than children growing up in
two-parent families.”
Overall 8.6 million children or 12 percent lived in high poverty
areas—communities where more than 30 percent of the population is under
the poverty line. This is up by 2.3 million or 9 percent of all US
children in 2000.
For minority populations, the measures of well being were worse than
the average. Half of African-American and American Indians—more than
double the national average—and almost forty percent of Hispanic and
mixed-race children lived in families where no parent had stable
employment year-round compared to 25 percent of non-Hispanic white
children. Thirty-nine percent of black children live in poverty; 34
percent of Latino children are in poverty.
Again this year the report cites a recent Stanford University study
that found “the gap in standardized test scores between affluent and
low-income students has grown by about 40 percent since the 1960s and is
now double the testing gap between African American and non-Hispanic
whites, which declined over the same period.”
The report focuses on early childhood education, stating that “only a
small percentage of poor children participate in programs of sufficient
quality and intensity to overcome the developmental deficits associated
with chronic economic hardship and low levels of parental education.”
However, cutbacks through the federal sequester, not mentioned in the
report, have already adversely affected programs like these for
low-income pre-school children that are connected to Head Start.
The report does not offer solutions to the devastating economic and
social conditions. In his introduction to this year’s Kids Count report
Patrick McCarthy, president and CEO of the Annie E. Casey Foundation,
endorses the falsehood that underlies the Obama Administration’s assault
on social programs. He asserts: “Given the consensus on the need to
reduce the country’s long-term debt, simply adding more public dollars
to existing strategies is neither wise nor feasible.”
The gutting of existing assistance programs has exacerbated the
alarming decline in well being for children. For example the
foundation’s Michigan affiliate has released figures for the decline in
welfare support to children in poor families since welfare cuts began.
Then-president Clinton abolished welfare entitlement nationwide in 1996.
Peter Ruark from the Michigan League for Public Policy reported in
May that the Family Independence Program (FIP) caseload dropped to
45,236—its lowest level ever. In May 2013 the number of cases dropped
again.
He noted: “Twenty years ago, in April 1993, there were 232,795
Michigan households receiving cash assistance through the Aid to
Families with Dependent Children program. Ten years later, in April
2003, there were 74,851 households receiving cash assistance through the
Family Independence Program, which replaced AFDC in Michigan.
“The March unemployment rate was 8.5 percent and the FIP caseload
dropped below 50,000 for the first time. The last time Michigan had an
unemployment rate of 8.5 percent, in August 2008, there were more than
69,000 families receiving assistance, but the caseload hardly budged
over the following year as unemployment jumped to 14.2 percent. In fact,
from 2007 to 2010, caseloads dropped consistently as the unemployment
rate rose.”
The League attributes the cuts in support not to a decline in
unemployment in the state, but to new sanctions and lifetime time limits
imposed by Michigan lawmakers as well as policy changes at the
Department of Human Services that imposed stringent application
paperwork and reporting requirements.
The entire Kids Count 2013 report, along with links data and sites for Michigan and other states, can be found at
Kids Count 2013 Report
