PERCENT OF CHILDREN LIVING IN POVERTY

This indicator measures the share of children under the age of 18 who live in families with incomes below the US poverty threshold, of $16, 276 as defined by the US Office of Management and Budget.  Data used for this indicator excludes individuals who are either in prison, boot camp, or are are under the age of 15 and are living without a family.  Therefore, a child of age 10 living in an orphanage would not be included in the sample.

When Lyndon B. Johnson announced his famous War on Poverty in 1964 one of his stated goals was to reduce the number of children living in poverty. Since Johnson’s campaign to end poverty the number of children living in poverty has decreased from over 25% of all children in the United States to its present level of approximately 19%.

Data used in the most recent Data Books uses data from the Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates made available by the Census Bureau.  Since SAIPE data only provides state and smaller level estimates, KIDS COUNT data aggregates this to obtain a national percentage of Children living in poverty.  This estimate is the same that is used by Congress to determine allocation of Title I funding, and for discussion of welfare reform.  This indicator is therefore especially helpful when discussing public policy, especially in areas pertaining to child welfare.

Data for this indicator is provided by the Census Bureau; data is available online at www.census.gov/hhes/www/saipe.html. Since data is only available to 1998, the national composite rank uses this, as opposed to the 1998 data used for other indicators.

Figure 1: Percent of Children Living in Poverty: 1990-1998