According to the Children’s Defense Fund, U.S. Census Bureau figures reveal that 1 in 7 American kids live in poverty, with over 11 million affected in 2021 due to caregiving costs, single parenthood, unemployment, and family disabilities.
According to U.S. Census Bureau figures released by the Children’s Defense Fund, over 11 million children were expected to be living in poverty in 2021.
This corresponds to around one in seven American children, or 15.3 percent. It’s a significant toll, even higher than the adult population, which in that year comprised 10.3 percent of those 65 and over and 10.5 percent of those aged 19 to 64.
This discrepancy is caused by things like the “cost of caregiving and its responsibilities, transitions to a single parenthood household, unemployment of parents, and disabilities of family members,” according to an analysis by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.
The graph below from Statista’s Anna Fleck illustrates how non-White people have disproportionately higher rates of poverty.
Compared to a relatively low 8.8 percent of White children, American Indian/Alaska Native children were disproportionately overrepresented, with 29.1 percent of this group living in poverty in 2021. Black children came in second, at 27.1 percent.
Regarding the total number of impoverished children, Hispanic children accounted for 4,168,000, or 37.4 percent of all children, according to the source in 2021. This made them the largest category.
The geographical disparity is one of the other patterns in the statistics that the Children’s Defense Foundation has emphasized. The South has a child poverty frequency of about 20 percent or one in five children. In the Northeast, Midwest, and West, this falls to less than 15% (almost one in seven).
The statistics for children living in single-parent households, where nearly four out of ten (37.1%) were living in poverty in 2021, maybe the most startling.
Previously, GreatGameIndia reported that, according to Oxfam Australia Chief Executive Lyn Morgain, the pandemic created a new billionaire every 30 hours and pushed a million into extreme poverty every 33 hours.
