Poverty among U. S. children: 1 in 4!!!

Are you surprised?  Poverty is the most serious problem facing the United States today.  The following report reveals just how pervasive the challenge continues to be.



U.S. Child Poverty Second Highest Among Developed Nations:

The latest edition of UNICEF's report on child poverty in developed countries found that 30 million children in 35 of the world's richest countries live in poverty. Among those countries, the United States ranks second on the scale of what economists call "relative child poverty" -- above Latvia, Bulgaria, Spain, Greece, and 29 others. Only Romania ranks higher, with 25.5 percent of its children living in poverty, compared with 23.1 percent in the U.S.

The term "relative child poverty" refers to a child living in a household where the disposable income is less than half of the national median income. Many critics argue that relative poverty isn't the same as real hardship, or absolute poverty.

But the report brushes that away. Poverty is "essentially a relative concept," it says. For example, a little more than a century ago, the wealthiest people in the world didn't have cars. It concedes, however, that the measurement has some weaknesses. First, a child's well-being doesn't always correspond to the parents' income. Second, comparing the relative poverty rates of various countries doesn't make sense unless the countries have similar median incomes.

Because of these weaknesses the report considers "child deprivation." To measure this, researchers produced a list of 14 items found in most middle-class households and counted the number of children whose families couldn't afford them. The list included Internet connection, new clothes, three daily meals, two pairs of properly fitting shoes, and "the opportunity, from time to time, to invite friends home to play and eat."

•#35: Romania 25.5% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median. Putting that line at 60% of the median, and the percentage rises to 32.3%.

•#34: United States 23.1% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median. Around 1.2% of the GDP is public spending on families in cash transfers, tax breaks and services.

•#33: Latvia 18.8% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median. 15.9% of children are lacking five or more items on the deprivation index.

•#32: Bulgaria 17.8% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median. For children living in homes where parents are jobless, the deprivation rate shoots up to 85.2%, the second-worst of the European countries.

•#31: Spain 17.1% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median.

•#30: Greece 16% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median. The deprivation rate for children is over 40% when assessed looking at whether or not the child is from a migrant family (at least one parent is foreign-born).

•#29: Italy 15.9% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median.

•#28: Lithuania 15.4% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#27: Japan 14.9% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#26: Portugal 14.7% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#25: Poland 14.5% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#24: Canada 13.3% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median. Canada has the same level of relative child poverty as the United States, but once taxes and benefits are taken into consideration, the number is almost halved.

•#23: Luxembourg 12.3% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#22: United Kingdom 12.1% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#21: Estonia1 1.9% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#20; New Zealand 11.7% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#19: Slovakia 11.2% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#18: Australia 10.9% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#17: Hungary 10.3% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#16: Belgium 10.2% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#15: Malta 8.9% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#14: France 8.8% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#13: Germany 8.5% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#12: Ireland 8.4% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#11: Switzerland 8.1% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#10: Czech Republic 7.4% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#8: Austria (tied) 7.3% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#8: Sweden (tied) 7.3% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#7: Denmark 6.5% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#6: Slovenia 6.3% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#3: Norway (tied)6.1% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#3: Netherlands (tied) 6.1% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#3: Cyprus (tied) 6.1% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#2: Finland 5.3% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#1: Iceland 4.7% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

Sheldon Danziger, the director of the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan, said the report does a good job of summing up what many economists have believed for a long time. "Among rich countries, the U.S. is exceptional," he said. "We are exceptional in our tolerance of poverty."

Danziger said he was especially impressed by a figure showing Canada and the U.S. have the same relative child poverty rate -- 25.1 The chart also showed that after government taxes, benefits and other social programs, Canada's child poverty rate drops to 13.1, while America's barely budges, hovering above 23.1 percent.

"Basically, other countries do more," he said. "They tend to have minimum wages that are higher than ours. The children would be covered universally by health insurance. Other countries provide more child care."

In a new book, Jane Waldfogel, a professor of social work at Columbia University, writes that the Labour Government's efforts to combat child poverty in the U.K. were "larger and more sustained than in the United States." Shortly after he became prime minister in 1997, Tony Blair found himself staring at a UNICEF report similar to this new one, except that England's child poverty ranking was much higher.

So Blair's government instituted programs modeled after former U.S. President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. The U.K. developed Sure Start -- an early-care program for low-income children similar to the U.S. Head Start. British families could apply for the Working Tax Credit, similar to the U.S. Earned Income Tax Credit.

The Labour Party spent more on these programs, even as the U.S. spent less, and within five years the number of children living in "absolute poverty" in the U.K. had fallen by half. According to the UNICEF report, 12.1 percent of British children now live in relative poverty -- nearly half the percentage of American children.

Read entire report  here.