POVERTY IS UNEQUAL

The Census Bureau’s annual report on poverty and income shows major economic improvement on a number of indicators, including a drop in poverty from 14.8 % of Americans in 2014 to 13.5% in 2015. Virtually all groups of Americans, including children, shared in the poverty reduction, with about one million fewer children living in poverty and the child poverty rate improving from 21.1% 2014 to 19.7% in 2015. But, despite clear improvement, America’s children and young adults still have the highest poverty rates, and children and young adults of color experience sharply elevated poverty even within that group. One analysis found that most of these children live in families with at least one working parent: in 2015, about 70% of poor children and 84% of low-income children lived with at least one worker. Children and young adults of color are far more likely to be poor than White children. About one third of Black children and about three in ten Hispanic children live in poverty.

Source: Center for Law & Social Policy, 10/5/16, Inequality in Poverty