Poverty Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on poverty essay.

“Poverty is the worst form of violence”. – Mahatma Gandhi.

poverty essay

How Poverty is Measured?

For measuring poverty United nations have devised two measures of poverty – Absolute & relative poverty.  Absolute poverty is used to measure poverty in developing countries like India. Relative poverty is used to measure poverty in developed countries like the USA. In absolute poverty, a line based on the minimum level of income has been created & is called a poverty line.  If per day income of a family is below this level, then it is poor or below the poverty line. If per day income of a family is above this level, then it is non-poor or above the poverty line. In India, the new poverty line is  Rs 32 in rural areas and Rs 47 in urban areas.

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Causes of Poverty

According to the Noble prize winner South African leader, Nelson Mandela – “Poverty is not natural, it is manmade”. The above statement is true as the causes of poverty are generally man-made. There are various causes of poverty but the most important is population. Rising population is putting the burden on the resources & budget of countries. Governments are finding difficult to provide food, shelter & employment to the rising population.

The other causes are- lack of education, war, natural disaster, lack of employment, lack of infrastructure, political instability, etc. For instance- lack of employment opportunities makes a person jobless & he is not able to earn enough to fulfill the basic necessities of his family & becomes poor. Lack of education compels a person for less paying jobs & it makes him poorer. Lack of infrastructure means there are no industries, banks, etc. in a country resulting in lack of employment opportunities. Natural disasters like flood, earthquake also contribute to poverty.

In some countries, especially African countries like Somalia, a long period of civil war has made poverty widespread. This is because all the resources & money is being spent in war instead of public welfare. Countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc. are prone to natural disasters like cyclone, etc. These disasters occur every year causing poverty to rise.

Ill Effects of Poverty

Poverty affects the life of a poor family. A poor person is not able to take proper food & nutrition &his capacity to work reduces. Reduced capacity to work further reduces his income, making him poorer. Children from poor family never get proper schooling & proper nutrition. They have to work to support their family & this destroys their childhood. Some of them may also involve in crimes like theft, murder, robbery, etc. A poor person remains uneducated & is forced to live under unhygienic conditions in slums. There are no proper sanitation & drinking water facility in slums & he falls ill often &  his health deteriorates. A poor person generally dies an early death. So, all social evils are related to poverty.

Government Schemes to Remove Poverty

The government of India also took several measures to eradicate poverty from India. Some of them are – creating employment opportunities , controlling population, etc. In India, about 60% of the population is still dependent on agriculture for its livelihood. Government has taken certain measures to promote agriculture in India. The government constructed certain dams & canals in our country to provide easy availability of water for irrigation. Government has also taken steps for the cheap availability of seeds & farming equipment to promote agriculture. Government is also promoting farming of cash crops like cotton, instead of food crops. In cities, the government is promoting industrialization to create more jobs. Government has also opened  ‘Ration shops’. Other measures include providing free & compulsory education for children up to 14 years of age, scholarship to deserving students from a poor background, providing subsidized houses to poor people, etc.

Poverty is a social evil, we can also contribute to control it. For example- we can simply donate old clothes to poor people, we can also sponsor the education of a poor child or we can utilize our free time by teaching poor students. Remember before wasting food, somebody is still sleeping hungry.

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Child Poverty in the United States: A Tale of Devastation and the Promise of Hope

Alyn t. mccarty.

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Center for Women’s Health and Health Disparities Research

The child poverty rate in the United States is higher than in most similarly developed countries, making child poverty one of America’s most pressing social problems. This article provides an introduction of child poverty in the US, beginning with a short description of how poverty is measured and how child poverty is patterned across social groups and geographic space. I then examine the consequences of child poverty with a focus educational outcomes and child health, and three pathways through which poverty exerts its influence: resources, culture, and stress. After a brief review of the anti-poverty policy and programmatic landscape, I argue that moving forward we must enrich the communities in which poor families live in addition to boosting incomes and directly supporting children’s skill development. I conclude with emerging research questions.

SECTION I: Introduction

In 2014, 15.5 million children—or 21.1% of children under age 18—lived in families with incomes below the federal poverty line, making children the largest group of poor people in the United States ( DeNavas-Walt & Proctor 2015 ). Rates are even higher for the youngest children: 25% of children under age 3 are poor ( Jiang et al. 2015 ). These figures position the US second only to Romania in rankings of child poverty rates among 35 industrialized countries ( Adamson 2012 ).

Poor children in the US face a widening economic chasm between themselves and their more affluent peers ( Autor 2014 ). Income inequality has grown substantially in the last forty years; after decades of decline, income inequality now harkens back to levels similar to those during the Great Depression ( Piketty & Saez 2014 ). What’s more, children from impoverished backgrounds in the US have a tougher time getting out of poverty than children in other similarly developed countries. Rates of social mobility are lower in the United States than most continental European countries ( Bjorklund & Jantti 2009 ; Duncan & Murnane 2011 , pg. 5–6; Hertz et al. 2008 ) and have remained unchanged since 1979 ( Lee & Solon 2009 ).

High rates of child poverty, income inequality, and social immobility motivate a sense of urgency and importance in research and policy focused on poor children and their families. In this article, I review the latest research on child poverty across multiple social and behavioral science disciplines. Together, this work tells two stories: One narrative warns of the long-term negative impacts associated with child poverty, but the other offers hope of resilience through policies and programs designed to reduce child poverty and mitigate its damages.

In Section II, I begin by describing how researchers define and measure poverty. Section III offers a descriptive portrait of what child poverty looks like in America today. In Section IV, I review literature on the impact of child poverty educational outcomes and child health. I discuss new types of data and approaches to the study of child poverty that have uncovered nuance in the impact of child poverty. In Section V, I describe three pathways through which poverty exerts its effects on children: resources, culture, and stress. Section VI briefly reviews anti-poverty policies that aim to reduce the rate of child poverty and early childhood interventions that aim to limit its effects. In Section VII, I argue that providing economic benefits to poor families and investing early on in children’s human capital may be more effective if paired with investments in the communities in which poor families live. Finally, in Section VII, I conclude with emerging research questions.

SECTION II: Definition of Poverty & Measurement

Approximately 46.7 million people in the United States live below the poverty line, a rate of 14.8 percent ( DeNavas-Walt & Proctor 2015 ). Of these, 15.5 million—about a third—are children. Children account for about 23 percent of the overall US population, which means that children are overrepresented among the poor ( US Census Bureau 2015 ). Figure 1 shows 2014 poverty rates for children across multiple age groups using data from the American Community Survey. 1 Overall, 21.7% of children are poor. Poverty rates are higher among younger children and lower among older children: approximately 24% of children ages 5 or younger are poor compared to about 18% of youth ages 16 or 17.

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Source: Author’s calculations using American Community Survey (ACS) data, 2014.

Accurately measuring child poverty and how it varies over time and place gives us…

Accurately measuring child poverty and how it varies over time and place gives us insight into how rates of child poverty are shaped by economic, demographic, and public policy change ( Cancian & Danziger 2009 ). On its face, measuring poverty should be quite simple. Yet, there is some debate about how best to categorize a family’s poverty status ( Haveman et al. 2015 ). Since the early 1960s, poverty status has been determined by comparing a household’s pre-tax cash income (e.g., wages and salaries) to a threshold that accounts for inflation using the Consumer Price Index. The child poverty rate is the proportion of families with children who have incomes below the threshold. The threshold is anchored at three times the cost of a subsistence food budget. 2 The threshold is adjusted for family size, composition, and age of householder, but it is the same no matter where a person lives in the US.

The official poverty measure is intended to reflect the proportion of the population for whom the resources they share with others in their household are not enough to meet their basic needs ( Haveman et al. 2015 ). However, a number of criticisms of the measure have been raised, revealing the significant shortcomings of the way poverty is officially determined ( Citro & Michael 1995 ). In response to these criticisms, the Census Bureau now reports a supplemental poverty measure (SPM) each year, which (1) takes into account necessary expenses (e.g., taxes and childcare) and cash and in-kind government benefits (e.g., cash welfare, housing subsidies, WIC and SNAP benefits); (2) broadens the definition of household to include foster children and unmarried partners; (3) updates the poverty threshold annually rather than “anchoring” it to a set poverty line; and (4) reflects housing costs reported in the American Community Survey, thus varies by place of residence ( Haveman et al. 2015 ).

For most groups, the SPM rates are higher than official measures; however, for some groups—including children—the SPM rates are lower ( Short 2015 ). The lower SPM child poverty rate largely reflects the impact of government anti-poverty policies, many of which explicitly target families with children such as the Child Tax Credit, school lunch subsidies, and WIC benefits ( Fox et al. 2015 ). According to Short (2015) , the official poverty rate for children under 18 in 2014 was 21.5 percent, which exceeds the 2014 SPM rate of 16.7 percent by about 4.8 percentage points. 3

SECTION III: A PORTRAIT OF CHILD POVERTY IN AMERICA

The burden of child poverty is unequally distributed across population subgroups in the US. In this section, I describe patterns of child poverty in our society, drawing on research that explores the social and economic factors that generate and maintain poverty for some groups more than others, over time, and across geographic space.

The Color of Child Poverty

There are dramatic disparities in child poverty rates by race/ethnicity: in 2014, child poverty rates were highest for children who are non-Hispanic Black or African American (38%), American Indian (36%), or Hispanic or Latino (32%), while rates were lowest for children who are non-Hispanic White (13%) or Asian and Pacific Islander (13%) ( Kids Count 2015 ).

Though rates help us understand the disproportionate burden of child poverty for some racial/ethnic minorities, it is also revealing to examine the total population of children in poverty by race/ethnicity (see Figure 2 ). First, poverty affects all children, regardless of racial/ethnic background. Second, contrary to racialized stereotypes about who is poor in America, there are more non-Hispanic white children in poverty (4.9 million) than non-Hispanic Black or African American children (3.9 million). Third, the majority of children in poverty are of Hispanic origin (5.7 million). Fourth, for each racial/ethnic group, most children in poverty are between 0 and 5 years of age.

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High levels of child poverty among Back, American Indian, and Hispanic children…

High levels of child poverty among Black, American Indian, and Hispanic children reflect changes over time in the economy, public policy, and institutional practices that disproportionately affect people of color, such as declining relative wages of less educated men, declining availability of full-time jobs, and rising incarceration rates ( Wilson 1996 ). The disproportionality of poverty by race/ethnicity also reflects past and current discrimination in schooling, housing markets, and labor markets ( Cancian & Danziger 2009 ; Desmond 2016 ; Stokes et al. 2001 ).

Immigration and Child Poverty in the US: A Growing Concern

Immigrant status is also closely associated with poverty. Children of recent immigrants are a rapidly growing share of the child population in the United States: from 2006 to 2011, the number of children with at least one immigrant parent grew by 1.5 million, from 15.7 to 17.2 million ( Hanson & Simms 2014 ). Thus, children of immigrants account for nearly a fourth of all children in the United States. The majority of children of immigrants are Hispanic, and more than 40% have parents from Mexico.

Similar to many racial/ethnic minority groups, immigrant children are disproportionately likely to experience poverty relative to children whose parents were born in the US. In 2009, 18.2% of children with native-born parents were poor compared to 27.2% of children with “established immigrant” parents (i.e., those who have been in the US for more than ten years), and 38.5% of children with parents who recently immigrated to the US (Wight et al. 2011).

Since immigrants represent an increasing share of the US population and poverty rates among the foreign born tend to be high, immigration directly affects the overall child poverty rate ( Raphael & Smolensky 2009 ). Theoretically, immigration could also affect child poverty rates by driving down the wages and employment of native-born workers, though there is little evidence to support this claim ( Raphael & Smolensky 2009 ).

Declining Rates of Marriage and the Growing Burden of Child Poverty

Child poverty rates are substantially higher for children in single-mother families than for those in married-couple families, in part because single-mother families have fewer potential earners, and many have difficulty collecting child support payments from fathers ( Mather 2010 ). In 2014, 30.6% of single mother families were poor, compared with only 6.2% of married families with children ( DeNavas-Walt & Proctor 2015 ).

During the 1970s and 1980s, there was a rapid increase in single-mother families in the US, and rates have remained high since the 1990s; nearly one-fourth of children under 18 live in single-mother families ( Mather 2010 ). 4 Cancian & Reed (2009) note that though women are now less likely to be married than previously, women also tend to have fewer children, are more educated, and are more likely to be working than in the past. The researchers argue that these trends have countervailing influences on the child poverty rate: increased maternal employment has offset the poverty increasing effects of single motherhood. Still, recent changes in family structure have increased the child poverty rate, all else being equal.

Poverty of Place: How Child Poverty is Spatially Distributed in the US

In addition to their race/ethnic identification, immigrant status, and their parents’ marital status, where children live can also put them at a greater risk of growing up poor. Though many conceive of poverty as an urban problem, 95 of the 100 counties in the US with the highest child poverty rates are located in rural areas, whereas most counties with the lowest child poverty rates tend to be in wealthy suburbs of large metropolitan areas ( O’Hare & Mather 2008 ). Poverty disproportionately affects children living in rural areas as a result of recent economic changes in rural communities where key industries have disappeared (e.g., family farms) or moved overseas (e.g., textiles manufacturing) ( O’Hare 2009 ; Vernon-Feagans et al. 2012 ). The service sector jobs that have replaced these industries contribute to higher rates of poverty because they are less stable and lower paying, and rural areas have not benefitted from the rise of technology-related companies in the same way as have urban and suburban areas ( O’Hare 2009 ).

Child poverty is also a highly clustered regional phenomenon. The South has a regional poverty rate of over 16%, and there are hotspot clusters of high rates of child poverty in the Mississippi Delta region, the Black Belt, Appalachia, southwest Texas and New Mexico, southern South Dakota, and northern Nebraska ( Voss et al. 2006 ). Regional variation in child poverty can in part be explained by their social and economic contexts. Structural factors such as racial/ethnic composition and industry combine to influence the social processes that generate levels of child poverty in different areas. For example, racial/ethnic composition is more strongly associated with child poverty in farming dependent areas, which in part explains the higher levels of child poverty that are observed in the South ( Curtis et al. 2012 ).

The supplemental child poverty rate varies widely across states, which in large part reflects variation in state anti-poverty policies ( The Anne E Casey Foundation 2015 ). In an analysis of the US Census Bureau Supplementary Poverty Measure Public Use Research files in 2012–2014, The Anne E Casey Foundation (2015) found that federal benefits, which generally do not adjust for differences in costs of living, have a smaller impact on reducing child poverty rates in states where cost of living is high. In addition, though most government benefits are funded at the federal level, states vary with respect to the ins-and-outs of policy implementation, particularly for welfare: income eligibility limits, benefit levels, financial incentives to work, time limits, eligibility requirements for two-parent families, and the stringency of rules that reduce or terminate benefits for families that are non-compliant ( McKernan & Ratcliffe 2006 ; Soss et al. 2001 ). Many of these welfare policy variations are associated with variation in poverty levels by state, making the state that children are raised in particularly consequential for their economic well-being ( McKernan & Ratcliffe 2006 ).

SECTION IV: Consequences of Poverty

The literature on the consequences of child poverty is enormous, and the latest scholarship is increasingly methodologically sophisticated (see recent review by Duncan et al., 2012 ). Recent research has moved away from cross-sectional analyses, which capture a snapshot of children’s lives at one point in time, toward longitudinal analyses, which allow the linking of trajectories of poverty exposures during infancy and early childhood to outcomes across the life course. As such, it is increasingly common for studies to address the dynamics of exposure to poverty, including intensity, timing, and duration (e.g., short term vs. long term poverty). Furthermore, studies are paying increasing attention to the context of children’s lives beyond their families’ own socioeconomic status by explicitly modeling the impact of economic resources of others around them, for example in their schools and neighborhoods.

These new ways of studying the effects of child poverty have revealed that: 1) most differences in outcomes between poor and non-poor children remain after adjusting for potentially confounding factors (i.e., factors other than income that are associated with both poverty and child outcomes); 2) poverty exposure may be especially harmful during early childhood, a period of rapid brain growth and development; 3) the longer a child is exposed to poverty, the greater the risk of negative outcomes; 4) the effects of poverty can accumulate over time or lie dormant for years, only to be revealed in adulthood; and 5) the socioeconomic context of neighborhoods and schools matter for children’s outcomes net of their own family’s resources ( Brooks-Gunn et al. 1993 ; Duncan & Magnuson 2011a ; Duncan et al. 1998 ; Duncan et al. 2010 ; Elder 1985 ; Entwisle et al. 2005 ; Foster & Furstenberg 1999 ; Harding 2003 ; Hertzman 1999 ; Kuh & Shlomo 2004 ; McLeod & Shanahan 1996 ; Ratcliffe & McKernan 2010 ; Sastry & Pebley 2010 ; Turley 2003 ).

In the next few pages, I review literature on two domains of child well-being: academic achievement and child health. Due to lack of space, I do not focus on other outcomes, though they remain the focus of much of the current academic research on the consequences of child poverty across the life course, including learning and developmental delays, criminal activity, teenage childbearing, marriage, and adult health and socioeconomic outcomes ( Brooks-Gunn & Duncan 1997b ; Duncan & Brooks-Gunn 1997 ; Duncan et al. 2010 ; Duncan et al. 2012 ).

A Growing Academic Achievement Gap Between Rich and Poor

One of the most widely studied outcomes of childhood poverty is success in school. The focus on schooling is rooted in the widespread belief that children who do well in school have a better chance of escaping poverty when they are adults. Indeed, education is increasingly necessary for economic wellbeing in the US, in part due to a growing earnings gap between those who are college-educated and those who are not ( Goldin & Katz 2008 ). Success in school also strongly predicts a wide variety of other desired outcomes, such as civic participation, adult health, and life expectancy ( Attewell & Levin 2007 ; Hout 2012 ; van Kippersluis et al. 2011 ). Yet, the challenge of succeeding academically for children living in poverty is a difficult one. Poverty has large and consistent associations with academic outcomes, including achievement on standardized tests, years of completed schooling, and degree attainment ( Bailey & Dynarski 2011 ; Brooks-Gunn & Duncan 1997a ; Duncan & Magnuson 2011b ; Entwisle et al. 2005 ). Differences between poor and non-poor children are observable early on and persist across the school years: gaps in academic achievement are evident in kindergarten, and by age 14, students from the bottom income quintile are a full academic year behind their peers in the top income quintile ( Duncan & Magnuson 2011b ; Duncan & Murnane 2011 ). What’s more, income inequality in academic achievement is getting worse rather than improving over time: the achievement gap between the 90th and 10th percentiles of the income distribution among children born in 2001 is 30–40 percent larger than among children born twenty-five years earlier and is now larger than racial gaps ( Reardon 2011 ). The growing income-achievement gap is driven by a strengthening of the association between family income and children’s academic achievement for families above the median income level, which reflects increasing parental investment in children’s cognitive development among the more economically advantaged ( Reardon 2011 ). 5

Impact of Poverty on the Physical and Mental Health of Children

Poverty is also key social determinant of infant and child health, which can have lasting effects on educational attainment, earnings, and adult health ( Aber et al. 1997 ; Duncan & Brooks-Gunn 1997b ; Wagmiller et al. 2006 ). The central role of poverty in shaping child health is increasingly clear. Recently, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a policy statement and technical report that recognizes this centrality, drawing on research demonstrating a causal relation between early childhood poverty and child health ( Council on Community Pediatrics 2016 ).

For infants, poverty increases the risk of a number of birth outcomes including low birth weight, which is a general indictor of a baby’s in utero environment and development and a precursor to subsequent physical health and cognitive and emotion problems ( Bennett 1997 ; Brooks-Gunn & Duncan 1997b ; Starfield et al. 1991 ). Poverty increases the risk of infant mortality, another widely accepted indicator of the health and well-being of children ( Brooks-Gunn & Duncan 1997b ; Corman & Grossman 1985 ). With an infant mortality rate of 6.1 in 2009, the US lags far behind European countries, ranking last in a comparison of 26 OECD countries ( MacDorman et al. 2014 ). The excess infant mortality rate in the US is largely driven by post-neonatal deaths (those that occur between one month and a year after the birth) among low-income mothers ( Chen et al. forthcoming ).

For children, poverty is associated with a number of physical health insults: increased risk of injuries resulting from accidents or physical abuse/neglect; more frequent and severe chronic conditions (e.g., asthma, diabetes, and problems with hearing, vision, and speech); more frequent acute illnesses; poorer nutrition and growth; lower immunization rates or delayed immunization; and increased risk of obesity and its complications ( Aber et al. 1997 ; Starfield 1991 ; Currie & Lin 2007 ; Case et al. 2002 ).

In addition to physical health problems, the disadvantages associated with poverty and economic insecurity can trigger significant mental health problems for children, including ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, and mood and anxiety disorders (Costello et al. 2004; Cuellar 2015 ; Perou et al. 2013 ). Mental health problems are more common than physical health problems, and their effects can be more pervasive ( Currie & Stabile 2006 ; Currie 2009 ). Approximately one fourth of youth experience a mental disorder during the past year and about a third across their lifetimes ( Merikangas et al. 2009 ). These problems, which are the dominant cause of childhood disability, can restrict children’s social competence and opportunities to learn ( Delaney & Smith 2012 ; Halfon et al. 2012 ).

Estimates across poverty status for mental disorders combined are not available. But, according to a recent summary of mental health surveillance among children in the US between 2005–2011 by the Center for Disease Control, prevalence rates are higher for children living in poverty compared with non-poor children for ADHD, behavior or conduct disorders, and mood/anxiety disorders ( Perou et al. 2013 ). The only exception to the pattern is among children who have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders, who are more likely to come from more economically advantaged families.

Beyond The Individual: How Neighborhood Poverty Affects Children

A rising share of US children live in high-poverty neighborhoods, defined as a neighborhood with poverty rates of 30 percent or more: more than 10 percent of US children lived in a high poverty neighborhood in 2010, up from 8.7 percent in 2000, a 25% increase ( Mather & Dupuis 2012 ). There are small but clear negative effects for children of growing up in a poor neighborhood that are beyond the effects of growing up in a poor family (see Sastry 2012 for a summary of this literature). Children growing up in high-poverty neighborhoods are at a higher risk of health problems, teen pregnancy, and dropping out of school ( Shonkoff & Phillips 2000 ; Brooks-Gunn et al. 1993 ). What’s more, the effects of neighborhoods may linger across generations. Many caregivers themselves grew up in the neighborhoods in which they are raising their children ( Sharkey 2008 ), and neighborhood environments experienced over multiple generations of a family influence children’s cognitive ability: exposure to neighborhood poverty over two consecutive generations can reduce a child’s cognitive ability by more than half a standard deviation ( Sharkey & Elwert 2011 ).

Section V: MechanismS of Influence

There are several pathways through which poverty affects children’s outcomes, which have been linked to three main theoretical frameworks: resources, culture, and family and environmental stress ( Duncan et al. 2014 ). This section reviews these frameworks, emphasizing the particular mechanisms that link poverty to child outcomes that each bring to light.

Material and Social Resources

Parents who struggle to make ends meet do not have enough income to fulfill basic material needs for their children, such as food, clothing, adequate and stable housing, and quality educational environments ( Becker 1991 ). Families who are poor also tend to be less socially connected to others, are less emotionally supported, and have more frequent negative social interactions ( Lin 2000 ; Mickelson & Kubzansky 2003 ). Inequality in access to resourceful social networks contributes to—and even reproduces—social inequality (for a review and discussion, see Lin 2000 ; DiMaggio & Garip 2012 ). In some ways, material and social resources work in tandem to disadvantage families in poverty. For example, high rates of mobility in areas of concentrated economic disadvantage erode the social fabric of neighborhoods, a process which has negative consequences for families who are able to stay put ( Jacobs 1961 ). As Desmond (2016) emphasizes in his ethnography Evicted , housing instability and evictions operate as mechanisms that degrade the social connectivity upon which resourceful neighborhoods are built. Evictions are not rare—one in eight families face involuntary moves each year nationwide—and evictions disproportionately affect low-income families with children. Many poor families that are in need of stable social environments to raise their children struggle to maintain stable housing, and are forced to move from place to place when a combination of their good will and financial supports give way to a rental market that profits from tenants’ financial instability ( Desmond 2016 ). Facing eviction, these families are not motivated to invest in their neighborhoods, emotionally or otherwise, and the ties that are formed between those crippled by the weight of their housing situations are often “disposable,” made for the short-term benefits they provide but easily discarded ( Desmond 2012 ). Disposable ties can add stress rather than reduce it, making them ill-suited to rebuff the negative consequences of poverty on child outcomes.

A Renewed Focus on the Culture of Poverty

After a considerable absence from the research agenda of social scientists, the study of culture within poverty scholarship has been reinvigorated. A culture perspective asks questions about how and why people cope with poverty and how they escape it, focusing on individuals’ beliefs, preferences, orientations, and strategies in response to poverty as well as anti-poverty policies and programs ( Small et al. 2010 ). Unlike much of what proceeded it, current culture of poverty scholarship avoids blaming the victim for their problems, rather focusing on why poor people adopt certain frames, values, and repertoires, and how people make meaning of their social status in relation to others ( Small et al. 2010 ).

Central to literature that addresses child poverty from a cultural perspective are studies of how parenting practices operate as a mechanism through which poverty affects children. For example, Lareau (2003) observes families from different class backgrounds with school-aged children in order to understand how social class differences in child-rearing strategies might contribute to stratification processes. She argues that social class position shapes parents’ cultural logics of child-rearing. Middle and upper class families practice “concerted cultivation,” wherein parents actively foster and assess their child’s talents, opinions, and skills. In contrast, working class and poor families are more likely to see the development of their children as an “accomplishment of natural growth,” allowing for unstructured free time socializing with family and community members and teaching children to be deferential and quiet. As a result of these different approaches, Lareau argues that middle-class children exhibit a sense of entitlement that puts them at a distinct advantage within schools and other institutions, while working-class children develop a sense of constraint in relation to schooling and the wider social world and are less adept at responding to school demands and practices. While Lareau’s theory is intuitively appealing, the small scope of her study leaves many questions unanswered. Nonetheless, her study is a primary example of the culture of poverty approach, which highlights parenting practices as key to understanding the mechanism through which poverty impacts children.

The Stress of Poverty

In contrast to the material, social, or cultural pathways that highlight social, cultural and economic factors and how they affect children, the stress pathway turns our focus inside the body. Living in poverty is a stressful, often chaotic experience ( Thompson 2014 ; Vernon-Feagans et al. 2012 ; Evans and Wachs 2010 ). The term “toxic stress” is often used to describe the potential impact on body systems of living in the disorganized, unstable, and unpredictable environments of impoverished families ( Garner & Shonkoff 2012 ). Toxic stress refers to strong, frequent, or prolonged activation of the body’s stress response system ( Thompson 2014 ). In contrast to positive or tolerable stress responses, which refer to more mild and adaptive changes in the body’s stress response system or stronger changes over a short period of time, a toxic stress response can undermine the organization of the brain. In some cases, toxic stress can challenge the body’s ability to respond to subsequent stressors, even those of the positive or tolerable variety ( Ladd et al. 2000 ). This lowered threshold makes some poor children less capable of coping effectively with stress as they age, influences genomic function and brain development, and increases the risk of stress-related physical and mental health problems later in life ( Blair et al. 2011 ; Danese & McEwen 2012 ).

SECTION VI: Anti-Poverty Policy and Interventions

It is clear that the consequences of growing up poor are substantial, particularly when children are exposed to conditions associated with poverty early on and for long stretches of time ( Duncan & Magnuson 2011a ). Government policies and early childhood interventions represent society’s response to the burden of child poverty. A comprehensive review of anti-poverty policies is beyond the scope of this review (see Cancian & Danziger 2009 and Haveman et al. 2015 for excellent analyses of anti-poverty efforts over the past 60 years), but the consensus is that anti-poverty policies successfully lift many people out of poverty, especially people with children ( Danziger and Wimer 2014 ; Haveman et al. 2015 ). In particular, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which is an income-based monthly benefit that can be used to purchase food at authorized stores, has become one of the most effective anti-poverty policies, particularly for households with children living in deep poverty ( Bartfeld et al. 2015 ). Yet, economic benefits of current policies constitute proportionately less of their income for poor families now than in prior decades ( Danziger & Danziger 2009 ). The public benefits that remain available to low-income families are mostly concentrated among families with earnings, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC), mostly come in the form of in-kind benefits—like SNAP—rather than cash assistance ( Shaefer et al 2015 ), and often fall very short of full coverage for those in need. For example, Section 8 housing choice vouchers, which guarantee that a family will pay no more than 30 percent of its income for housing, are available only to a third of poor renting families ( Desmond 2016 ).

In addition to anti-poverty policies that supplement income or increase employment for families with children, there are also programs and interventions that help redress the negative effects of poverty on children’s life chances. Rigorous evaluations of a number of famous early childhood programs (e.g., the Perry Preschool program, The Incredible Years, and the Abecedarian project) are often cited as evidence that such programs can at least partially compensate for the disadvantages associated with growing up poor, promoting cognitive skills and non-cognitive traits such as motivation (Cuhna et al. 2006). The positive effects appear to be long-lasting, and early interventions produce larger effects than programs focused on older children. Ultimately, though expensive at the outset, the returns on early investments come in the form of a more productive workforce, a reduction in expensive treatment for mental and physical problems, reduced reliance on public assistance, and less involvement in the criminal justice system ( Heckman et al. 2010 ).

In contrast to small-scale early childhood interventions, Head Start, which is administered by the Administration for Children and Families within the Department of Health and Human Services, serves over 1 million low-income children ages birth to 5 ( Administration for Children and Families 2014 ). Head Start services generally focus on early learning, health and developmental screenings, and strengthening parent-child relationships. Though children who attend Head Start score below norms across developmental areas including language, literacy, and mathematics, at both Head Start entry and exit ( Aikens et al. 2013 ), Head Start is associated with modest improvements in children’s preschool experiences and school readiness in certain areas compared to similarly disadvantaged children who did not attend Head Start ( Puma et al. 2012 ). However, the benefits appear to wane over time.

Another large scale program designed to address the needs of low-income families with children is the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program (MIECHV) ( Michalopoulos et al. 2015 ). MEICHV began as a pilot initiative in the Bush administration and a full fledged program in 2010 as an expansion to the Affordable Care Act. Between 2010 and 2014, it provided $1.5 billion to states for home visiting. For the most part, states used the MIECHV funds to expand the use of four evidence-based home visiting models: Early Head Start – Home Based Program Option; Healthy Families America; Nurse-Family Partnership; and Parents as Teachers. Home visiting programs vary quite a bit, but generally consist of visits from social workers, parent educators, and/or registered nurses to low-income pregnant women and new parents. Participants receive health check-ups and referrals, parenting advice, and guidance with navigating other programs. The duration and frequency of the visits vary depending on the program and age of the child. Some continue until the baby is two years old, others support families until children complete kindergarten. A recent review of 19 home visiting models suggests that home visiting programs have favorable impacts on a number of child outcomes including child health, child development, and school readiness ( Avellar et al. 2015 ). Many of the programs have sustained impacts at least one year after program enrollment.

SECTION VII: A Community approach to combating child poverty

Anti-poverty policy and early childhood interventions are successful, but both typically focus on individual families and children. This focus draws away from the ecological underpinnings of the poverty experience. Multiple ecologies of children’s lives—the variety of institutions with which families interact, the relations among these institutions, and the social networks of families—contribute developmental and educational inequalities among children (e.g., Bronfenbrenner & Morris 1997 ; Coleman 1988 ; Durlauf & Young 2001 ; Gamoran 1992 ; Turley 2003 ; Vandell & Pierce 2002 ). Given evidence of the increasing spatial concentration of poverty and the impact of living in areas of concentrated economic deprivation ( Jargowsky 2013 ; Sastry 2012 ), I argue that child and/or family-centered approaches may be more effective and longer lasting if paired with approaches that directly and purposefully target the communities in which low-income families live, thus in the ecological contexts of poor children.

A community approach should involve both indirect investments through institutions such as stable and affordable housing, schools, and labor markets, and direct investments through programs explicitly designed to strengthen social connectivity among parents. Indeed, a crucial aspect of breaking the cycle of poverty must directly build resourceful social connections among the caregivers of poor children. Resourceful social connections are those that are rich in social resources, like social support (e.g., listening to problems or plans for the future), social control (e.g., maintaining consistent expectations among parents and others within the social network), advice and information (e.g., regarding program eligibility, effectiveness of teachers and other institutional agents), and commonplace reciprocal exchanges (e.g., car pooling, child care) ( Domina 2005 ; Thoits 2011 ; Small 2009 ). As many low-income families know all too well, it takes a lot of effort, energy, and human capital to take advantage of the benefits the state provides ( Edin & Lein 1997 ). Building resourceful social connections within high-poverty neighborhoods can make these tasks less daunting by spreading information about how to determine eligibility, sharing in child care responsibilities, and providing transportation to government agencies, doctors’ offices, school, and other institutions designed to help poor families. Additionally, perhaps by investing in the social resources of communities devastated by high rates of poverty, we can empower residents to fight for policy changes they identify for themselves as immediately warranted.

Sociological research is not unequivocal about the benefits of tight social networks. Similar to the depiction of “disposable ties” describe above, Portes and Landolt (1996) argue that we are remiss when failing to consider the pitfalls of close relationships in areas of concentrated disadvantage. Thus, merely connecting parents to each other may not be enough to benefit children. The quality of those connections is tantamount as well. One example of a community-based program that targets parental social resources for low-income families is Families and Schools Together (FAST). FAST is a multi-family group intervention developed using family stress theory, family systems theory, social ecological theory, and community development strategies ( McDonald and Frey 1999 ). Four randomized controlled trials of the program show that, compared to control groups, FAST participants exhibit reduced aggressive and withdrawal behaviors, increased academic competence, and more developed social skills ( Abt Associates 2001 ; Kratochwill et al. 2004 ; McDonald et al. 2006 ; Gamoran et al. 2012 ). The effect of FAST on child outcomes is mediated in part through its effect on parent social networks ( Turley et al. 2012 ). Parents who participate in FAST are more likely to know other parents in their child’s school, to report that other parents share their expectations for their children, and to participate in reciprocal exchanges with other parents ( Turley et al. 2012 ).

The FAST program and others like it take direct aim at the quantity and quality of parents’ social connections. Social resource interventions may break down insidious hurdles that may be difficult for children from low-income families to overcome than by intervening through income supplementation or skill acquisition alone. Of course, the success of these types of programs will be undercut by the high rates of residential mobility currently experienced in low-income neighborhoods. Thus, indirect investments in social resources, for example through expanding housing vouchers to enable more poor families to pay their rent and avoid eviction ( Desmond 2016 ), should be considered a requisite for a truly enriched community approach to combating child poverty.

SECTION VIII: Emerging research questions

Poverty is a persistent problem for over 20% of the children in the United States ( DeNavas-Walt & Proctor 2015 ). Child development is shaped by children’s interactions within and across social contexts ( Bronfenbrenner 2002 ). The social contexts in which children from impoverished backgrounds live can be devastatingly harmful: growing up in poverty exposes children to more stress or abuse in the home, neighborhood crime, and school violence ( Duncan and Brooks-Gunn 1997 ). Exposure to environmental conditions associated with poverty profoundly shapes their development, and the effects become more pronounced the longer the exposure to poverty ( Duncan et al., 1998 ; Foster & Furstenberg 1999 ). Empirical studies from multiple social science disciplines including sociology, psychology, economics, have consistently documented crippling disadvantages across a number of developmental domains, showing that the disadvantages associated with poverty are entrenched, wide-reaching, and constitute an immediate and pressing policy challenge.

Moving the field forward are emerging questions about who sets the anti-poverty policy and programmatic agendas (e.g., Bradshaw 2007 ; O’Connor 2001 ), what cultural and behavioral assumptions are made by specific policy and program components (e.g., Edin & Kefalas 2005 ; Steensland 2006 ), and how policies and programs interact with the ways in which poor people engage various institutions, each other, and those who profit from their disadvantaged status (e.g., Desmond 2016 ). Furthermore, as argued here, an examination of the ways that neighborhood institutions support or erode the social connectivity of low-income neighborhoods is key. Researchers should continue to centrally locate the analysis of the impact of policy and programs not only on individual children but also on the social ecological environments in which they live and learn. Investing in the communities in which poor parents and caregivers live may enhance the positive effects of anti-poverty policy and early childhood interventions. Poverty scholars should examine how institutional features shape the social networks of families in financial trouble, and how children fare under different organizational arrangements. In Unanticipated Gains , his study of day care centers in New York City, Mario Small (2005) offers a theoretical framework to think about how organizational features of institutions can promote the kinds of stable ties that benefit families with young children. Small documents the social network benefits of certain centers that, by virtue of the particular institutional conditions in place, connect families to each other and provide families, particularly single mothers with young children, relationships that support their health and well being. Rather than the “unanticipated gains” like those that were observed in Small’s study, we may find we can anticipate these gains as we invest in the social and economic opportunities for the poor.

These emerging research questions will bring us closer to an understanding what policies will work best for addressing the high rates of overall child poverty, the disproportionality of child poverty, and the most cost-effective mechanisms for buffering children from the negative effects of poverty and its associated conditions.

Acknowledgments

This work is supported by a National Institutes of Health T32 award (5T32HD049302-08) from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

1 These estimates are from American Community Survey data, whereas official estimates come from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement. The numbers are slightly different for overall poverty (21.7% vs 21.1%). These differences reflect the different samples included in the poverty universe: The ACS includes the civilian and military household population and excludes group quarters (e.g., nursing homes and college dormitories), whereas the CPS includes the civilian non-institutionalized population ( US Census Bureau 2014 ).

2 The logic behind defining the threshold this way reflects research in the 1950s that showed families spent a third of their annual budget on food ( Haveman et al. 2015 ).

3 The official child poverty rate reported in Short (2015) is 21.5%, which differs from the official rate of 21.1% reported by DeNavas-Walt and Proctor (2015) . This is because Short includes unrelated individuals under the age of 15 in her calculation of the official rate among families with children.

4 Though single father families and cohabiting partners have increased in recent years, the overwhelming majority of children in single-parent homes live with their mothers ( Mather 2010 ).

5 During the 1970s, middle class families on average spent about $3,700 per year on investments in their children, compared to today’s average of $9,300 per year. Poor parents have not been able to keep pace with these increases in investments, so that contemporary poor children lag further behind their affluent counterparts of fifty years prior. The current average annual spending of $1,400 on investments in children among poor families is not even twice the 1970s average of $880 per year ( Duncan and Murnane 2011 )

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National Academies Press: OpenBook

A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty (2019)

Chapter: 1 introduction, 1 introduction.

From their infancy to their adolescence, children continuously develop capacities that are crucial for their physical and emotional well-being and their cognitive abilities, which in turn help to promote their success in school, their responsible behavior as adults, their eventual economic self-sufficiency, and lifelong health. These capacities, therefore, are the foundation of a well-functioning and prosperous society. Numerous studies suggest that a lack of adequate resources in childhood compromises the development of these capacities. Accordingly, the widespread poverty among American children today is cause for serious concern.

Using the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) threshold of about $25,000 for a family of four, in 2017 the U.S. Census Bureau counted more than 11 million U.S. children—nearly one-sixth of all our children—living in families with incomes that fell short of that poverty line ( Fox, 2018 ). 1 It also determined that 3.5 million of those children were living in “deep poverty,” defined as having family resources less than one-half the SPM poverty line ( Fox, 2018 ). As detailed in Chapter 2 of this report, child poverty rates are much higher for Black, Hispanic, and American Indian children than for White or Asian children. They are also much higher for children in single-parent families than those two-parent families

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1 See Tables A-2 and A-4 in The Supplemental Poverty Measure: 2017 at https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-265.pdf . The number of children in deep poverty was calculated by multiplying the percentage of people under age 18 with family incomes below 50 percent of the SPM poverty threshold by the number of children under age 18 in the United States (estimated to be 73.7 million in 2017 by the U.S. Census Bureau).

and for children in families with no workers than for those in families with part- or full-time workers. By most measures, poverty among U.S. children is higher than in peer English-speaking countries such as Canada and Australia, and it is much higher than in most other industrialized countries.

A robust research literature (reviewed in Chapter 3 ) shows that children growing up in poverty fare much worse than other children. Differences favoring children in more affluent families are already evident in toddlers’ and preschoolers’ language, memory, self-regulation, and socioemotional skills, with corresponding differences observed in neural structure and function in the brain regions that support these skills. Children living in deep poverty have the worst outcomes among all children on important health and development indicators, such as blood lead levels, obesity, and a composite indicator of flourishing that measures children’s mood, affection, and resilience ( Ekono, Jiang, and Smith, 2016 ). By the time they reached their 30s, individuals whose families had incomes below the poverty line during early childhood completed two fewer years of schooling and were earning less than one-half as much income, on average, when compared with peers whose family incomes were at least twice the poverty line ( Duncan, Ziol-Guest, and Kalil, 2010 ). Not all these differences can be attributed to poverty per se. Nevertheless, our review of the literature on the causal effects of childhood poverty (see Chapter 3 ) shows that the weight of the evidence indicates that income poverty itself causes negative child outcomes. This is especially the case when poverty begins in early childhood and/or persists throughout a large share of a child’s life.

Whether a family’s income is above or below a poverty threshold depends on parents’ decisions regarding their own schooling, work, and marriage, as well on a host of structural factors such as the availability of work, housing, and public transportation, the prevalence of neighborhood crime, and institutional racism, all of which are well beyond the control of families. However, government programs also matter a great deal. Child poverty rates in the United States would be much higher were it not for programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides nutrition assistance benefits to low-income individuals, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and the Child Tax Credit (CTC) (see Chapter 4 ).

If all countries’ child poverty rates were measured solely by the earned income of parents, U.S. children would have poverty rates that fell in the middle of the rankings among peer English-speaking countries. Part of what drives our child poverty rates so much higher than those in peer Anglophone and other high-income nations is the much smaller fraction of U.S. Gross Domestic Product that is devoted to redistributive social programs (see Chapter 4 ). According to Kids’ Share 2018 ( Isaacs et al.,

2018 ), spending on children younger than age 19 accounted for 9 percent of the U.S. federal budget in 2017. This figure, which does not include state spending on education, is projected to fall to 6.9 percent by 2028, while at the same time spending on adults under Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which accounted for 45 percent of the budget in 2017, is projected to rise to 50 percent by 2028.

THE COMMITTEE’S CHARGE

Given the problems generated by child poverty in the United States and the demonstrated effectiveness of many child poverty programs, the omnibus appropriations bill signed into law in December 2015 included a provision directing the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to conduct a comprehensive study of child poverty in the United States. Specifically, the study was to provide an evidence-based, nonpartisan analysis of the macroeconomic, health, and crime/social costs of child poverty, to study current efforts aimed at reducing poverty, and to propose recommendations with the goal of reducing the number of children living in poverty in the United States by one-half in 10 years. 2 This policy goal mirrors the aims of anti-poverty initiatives that have been undertaken in other English-speaking countries in the past two decades, most notably in the United Kingdom beginning in 1997 ( Waldfogel, 2010 ; see also Chapter 4 ).

The heart of the charge issued by the U.S. Congress to the National Academies is the goal of reducing the number of children living in poverty in the United States by one-half within 10 years. Congress has requested objective analyses of the existing research on the poverty-reducing effects of major assistance programs directed at children and families and specific policy and program recommendations for accomplishing this goal.

Ad hoc committees appointed by the National Academies are guided by a statement of task that defines and constrains their work. 3 Committee reports are expected to address all of the issues raised in the statements of task but not to go beyond them unless the committee judges it absolutely necessary for carrying out the full scope of the statement of task. The statement of task for the present study is shown in Box 1-1 .

In developing its list of policy and program proposals for reducing child poverty by half in 10 years, the committee considered existing federal programs as well as innovative programs developed by states and localities

2 See Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016, Pub.L. No. 114-113.

3 This study’s statement of task was developed jointly by staff members from Congress, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation within the Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Academies, as well as researchers and policy makers with expertise in the reduction of child poverty.

and in other countries, such as the United Kingdom and Canada. The scope of the programs the committee considered was broad. In addition to traditional anti-poverty programs, such as cash transfers, food and nutrition programs, and housing programs, the committee considered work support, health insurance, foster youth, juvenile and adult justice, and education and training programs.

For each program and policy option it developed, the committee attempted to estimate what impact it could have on reducing child poverty as defined using the SPM; how its poverty-reducing impacts would be distributed across demographic groups and across groups at three different levels of poverty: those at the poverty level; those in deep poverty; and

those in near poverty; and what would be the annual cost of implementing the program or policy at scale. To the extent possible, the committee examined the sensitivity of the impacts of its policy or program proposals to economic conditions, and it also considered other possible benefits the proposals could provide for government and society, such as improvements in child health, educational achievement, and welfare.

Because virtually none of the program and policy options we developed, if considered individually, would meet the 50 percent poverty-reduction goal, we also considered packages that would combine a number of policy and program changes to meet that goal. These are presented in Chapter 6 . The task of designing these packages led us to identify interactions among programs that could result in synergies or redundancies.

TEMPORAL AND OTHER CONSIDERATIONS ASSOCIATED WITH THE STATEMENT OF TASK

Timing is a key element of the committee’s statement of task. The policies and programs identified by the committee are intended to “help reduce child poverty and deep poverty . . . by 50 percent within 10 years of the implementation of the policy approach.” This relatively brief, decade-long interval focuses attention on actions that aim to quickly increase the resources available to the families of poor children—programs and policies such as tax credits or work requirements. Although programs such as those that support early childhood education may boost family income by enabling a mother to work, their main goals are to reduce poverty among future—rather than current—generations of children. Accordingly, they fall outside the committee’s statement of task, although they may be important to reducing poverty over the longer term.

Reducing Poverty or Building Children’s Capacities and Health?

The concern that growing up in poverty compromises children’s opportunities to develop to their full potential provides a powerful motivation for seeking to reduce or even eliminate child poverty. However, with children’s development in mind, the goal of child poverty reduction alone, whether in the short or long term, is limiting because it focuses all our attention on family resources and ignores other important factors in healthy development. An alternative goal to poverty reduction might be to promote children’s human capital , conceived broadly to include cognitive and noncognitive capacities as well as physical and mental health, both during childhood and into the adult years. Poverty reduction will help to build children’s human capital, but so too will attention to a much broader range of factors that promote children’s health and development, both

within the family and in the schools, neighborhoods, and other contexts of children’s lives.

For example, a broader goal of human capital development might lead us to favor policies and programs to promote more nurturing homes or more effective school environments over equally costly programs and policies that would benefit children only by improving their material circumstances. This report responds to the committee’s short-term poverty-focused congressional charge, but readers should bear in mind that adequate family material resources are but a single, albeit important, input for the healthy long-term development of children.

That said, programs targeting child poverty can build human capital in other ways. As an example, consider food assistance programs. Child poverty, as measured by the SPM, falls when benefits from a program like SNAP boost family resources. But, as explained in Chapter 3 , the evidence also indicates that SNAP’s predecessor program, food stamps, reduced the incidence of low birth weight among children born into low-income families and, if benefits were received during early childhood, improved that child’s cardiovascular health in adulthood as well. When making decisions, policy makers might want to consider these kinds of human capital impacts along with the reductions in shorter-term child poverty that a specific program or policy might achieve. With that in mind, the committee’s review of the poverty literature in Chapter 3 includes evidence on programs that both reduce child poverty and promote children’s health development.

HOW THE COMMITTEE SELECTED PROGRAMS TO REVIEW

The heart of the committee’s charge is to “identify policies and programs with the potential to help reduce child poverty and deep poverty . . . by 50 percent within 10 years.” To identify these programs and policies, the committee sought suggestions from its members and invited outside testimony from experts in the field. These included experts from universities, from policy organizations, and from practitioner organizations and represented a diverse array of political perspectives. In addition to holding two public information-gathering sessions, the committee received 25 policy memos, 19 of them from the 40 individuals we invited to submit memos and 6 more that were unsolicited. The committee also drew on the expertise of its own members to develop a list of possible policies and programs that might meet the charge. In addition, the committee commissioned papers from experts in Medicaid and American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) children living in poverty. 4

4 These commissioned papers are available at http://www.nap.edu/25246 .

Criteria for Selecting Programs and Policies

With hundreds of local, state, federal, and international anti-poverty program and policy models to choose from, the committee developed a set of criteria to guide its selection and then considered the strengths and weaknesses of each policy or program. The criteria are as follows:

  • Strength of the research and evaluation evidence
  • Magnitude of the reduction in child poverty
  • Child poverty reduction within high-risk subgroups
  • Cost of the program or policy
  • Impacts on the widely held values of work, marriage, opportunity, and social inclusion

The most important criterion was the strength of the research and evaluation evidence indicating that, if enacted, the policy would reduce child poverty in the short run. Here the committee gave preference to evidence from random-assignment program evaluations as well as methodologically strong “natural experiments,” that is, those that examined the impacts of unanticipated changes in the timing and structure of policies on children and their families. To generate estimates of poverty reduction from the committee’s program and policy ideas, it commissioned research from the Urban Institute’s Transfer Income Model, Version 3 (TRIM3) microsimulation model. 5

Second, with a target of reducing child poverty by one-half within 10 years, an obvious guiding criterion was the magnitude of the reduction in overall child poverty . The committee’s statement of task speaks of reductions in both the number of poor children and the fraction of children whose family incomes are below the poverty line. Since these two indicators may differ slightly in the context of a growing population of children, the committee chose to focus on reductions in the rate of child poverty.

Discussions with study sponsors led the committee to consider the distribution of poverty-reducing impacts across high-risk groups of children , defined by such characteristics as race, location, immigration status, and age of parent, who have above-average levels of poverty. Accordingly, the committee assigned importance to anti-poverty programs with relatively larger impacts on the children in these groups.

The fourth criterion was the likely cost of the program or policy . We defined cost as the incremental budgetary expense after accounting for all of the secondary impacts of the program or policy change such as

5 For more information, see http://trim3.urban.org/T3Welcome.php .

participation in other programs and changes in taxes paid resulting from changes in employment (for example, payroll taxes).

Fifth, the committee considered whether the program or policy was likely to promote widely agreed-upon values . Although not an explicit element of the statement of task, societal values have always figured prominently in debates over the nature of anti-poverty programs in the United States ( Lamont and Small, 2008 ). We focus on four such values: work, marriage, opportunity, and social inclusion. None is without complications or qualifications. In the case of work, for example, expectations that program participants seek paid employment may be suspended in the case of a parent with an infant or a severely disabled child. In the case of marriage, relationship quality is also a criterion, so an abusive or violent relationship, for example, would not be valued. Considerations of social inclusion figure prominently in debates over whether programs should be offered universally rather than targeted to the neediest individuals ( Garfinkel, Smeeding, and Rainwater, 2010 ). Universal programs are obviously more costly, but targeted programs can generate unforeseen incentives for people to qualify for or remain in programs, and recipients of targeted programs can run the risk of being stigmatized and confined to separate programs for the poor. In some cases, targeted programs that reward work, like the EITC, appear to generate a strong sense of social inclusion among recipients ( Halpern-Meekin et al., 2015 ).

In keeping with the spirit of its charge, the committee omitted political feasibility from its list of criteria, although we understood that some policies and programs might be more politically feasible than others. As the charge from Congress directs, the committee endeavored to “provide an evidence-based, nonpartisan analysis.”

The committee did not insist that all of the anti-poverty programs and policies it identified meet all of its five criteria. Strong research evidence was vital, but at the same time the committee recognized the inevitable tradeoffs in any policy or program proposal. Some of the approaches it chose were stronger on some criteria and weaker on others. The committee sought to balance the strengths and weaknesses of each proposal in light of the criteria taken as a whole.

CONSIDERATIONS IN ESTIMATING POLICY AND PROGRAM IMPACTS

At first glance, estimating poverty reductions for any given program may appear to be a straightforward calculation. If Program A provides, say, $5 billion in additional benefits to families with children, why not just conduct a simulation in which the incomes of recipient families are increased by the value of the added benefits and then determine how many families

are raised above the poverty or deep poverty thresholds by the incremental income? A first complication is that in the course of reducing poverty, anti-poverty policies and programs can produce behavioral responses on the part of parents. For example, programs like the EITC boost the (after-tax) hourly earnings of some low-wage workers, which can induce them to work and earn more, and this would then increase the poverty-reducing impact of the EITC well beyond what is accomplished by the tax credits alone ( Hoynes and Patel, 2017 ). Other programs can discourage work by reducing program benefits when earnings increase, or may discourage marriage by imposing rules that provide fewer benefits to married parents than to single parents. These kinds of behavioral responses are difficult to gauge but, as explained in Chapter 5 , the committee, supported by the research literature, attempted to incorporate such responses in its estimates of child poverty reductions.

A second complication in some programs is that not every potential recipient will in fact take up the benefit. Housing vouchers are an obvious example, because a substantial number of families offered vouchers today are not able to use them. As explained in Appendix F , the TRIM3 microsimulation model the committee used attempts to incorporate adjustments for behavioral responses and incomplete program take-up.

In some cases, the committee concluded that while a program met its criteria, it was not amenable to a quantitative policy simulation. One example is a program to promote the use of long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) devices, which have the potential to reduce poverty by delaying or reducing births into poor families; however, evidence on program take-up and impacts is fragmentary (See Chapter 7 for more information). Indeed, a number of promising small-scale demonstration programs have never been scaled up sufficiently to show whether key program features could be preserved if they were to be implemented across the nation or even across a single state. Expansions of the Medicaid medical insurance program are another example. The committee’s literature review in Chapter 3 suggests that health insurance programs can improve child health, but estimating short-run impacts of program expansion on poverty reduction is complicated by the various ways poverty measures handle health care benefits and expenditures.

Therefore, Chapter 5 includes programs and policies for which evidence on behavioral responses, take-up, and other complicating issues is definitive enough to support a reasonably precise set of estimates of child poverty reduction. In Chapter 6 , the committee anticipated that programs and policies interact and so they estimated synergies and redundancies across programs and policies in its examination of packages. Chapter 7 discusses programs for which the evidence base was sufficient to suggest

considerable promise but not strong enough to support precise estimates of national impacts on child poverty.

Poverty reduction may benefit children in some families more than others. Parents coping with the stresses of unstable work schedules, personal or family illnesses and disabilities, uninvolved partners, neighborhood crime, low-quality schools, or discriminatory workplaces may find it difficult to engage in responsive parenting or longer-run planning on behalf of their children ( McLoyd, 1998 ; Mullainathan and Shafir, 2013 ). These problems, in turn, may dilute some of the possible benefits of policy-induced increases in material resources. Because these contextual considerations are so important, and most are not part of the simulation model, the committee devotes an entire chapter ( Chapter 8 ) to them and their implications for the committee’s conclusions.

Finally, the expertise of committee members spans a wide range of disciplines and includes policy work in state and federal governments as well as in the nonprofit sector. All members share a commitment to the standards of evidence embraced by the National Academies but at the same time brought diverse political orientations to issues surrounding anti-poverty policies. For the programs featured in Chapters 5 and 6 , it is important to understand that committee consensus on their inclusion was based solely on the strength of the evidence base supporting them and not on individual committee members’ endorsements of the policies themselves.

ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT

The report proper begins in Chapter 2 with a demographic portrait of child poverty in the United States. In this chapter we explain how poverty is measured and why the relatively new SPM, which our statement of task directs us to use, provides a somewhat different view of child poverty than the much older official measure. Child poverty rates are lower with the SPM than with the cash-based Official Poverty Measure (OPM). Over the past half-century, SPM-based child poverty has declined more rapidly than OPM-based poverty. In Chapter 2 , we also compare child poverty in the United States and in peer anglophone countries. By and large, the United States has considerably higher rates of child poverty than these other countries, although the concentration of poor children among single-parent and nonworking families is broadly similar.

In Chapter 3 , we respond to the first element of the statement of task by reviewing the literature on the consequences of child poverty, including macroeconomic, microeconomic, health, and social costs. The chapter explains how the technical sophistication of these literatures has increased markedly over time, as studies of the consequences of child poverty have progressed from an emphasis on correlational methods to the use of natural

experiments that track how measures of child well-being change in response to large changes in policies such as the EITC and SNAP.

Chapter 4 responds to the second element of the statement of task by providing an assessment of current local, state, federal, and international efforts to reduce child poverty. As directed by the statement of task, the committee provides a separate look at poverty lines drawn to distinguish deep poverty (defined as below 50% of the SPM poverty line), conventional poverty (as defined by the SPM), and near poverty (the upper limit of which is defined as 150% of SPM poverty). At the federal level, a noteworthy distinction can be made between program impacts on the poverty of children whose families are near the poverty threshold and impacts on children in families well below the threshold. Tax-based programs such as the EITC move millions of children above the SPM-based poverty line but have much smaller impacts on the economic status of children in families with little taxable income. On the other hand, income-tested programs such as SNAP proved most effective at increasing the economic resources of the families of children in deep poverty.

Peer English-speaking countries provide some interesting examples of efforts to reduce child poverty, most notably the United Kingdom, where the government pledged in 1999 to halve child poverty within a decade and to eradicate it completely within two decades ( Waldfogel, 2010 ). More recently, Canada enacted a very substantial child benefit for low-income families that is estimated to have reduced poverty among Canadian children by 5 to 6 percent within a year of its 2016 enactment ( Sherman, 2018 ). These efforts are also reviewed in Chapter 4 .

A crucial element in the committee’s charge is to compose a list of promising anti-poverty policies and programs. As discussed above, we did so by drawing on the evaluation research literature as well as on ideas from individuals and groups representing a broad range of political orientations and experiences working in local and county governments, at the local social services and school systems level, and in state and federal government. Chapter 5 details the policy and program proposals that were amenable to a quantitative policy simulation to estimate net impacts. The summary section of Chapter 5 covers several issues that cut across the set of program and policy proposals the committee developed. Several are based on how the various proposals rank based on the selection criteria, for example, ranking proposals based on cost, degree of poverty reduction both overall and in key demographic subgroups, and impacts on employment.

In Chapter 6 , the committee presents program packages that are projected to meet the 50 percent poverty-reduction goal set by its authorizing legislation. Chapter 7 describes additional programs and policies that were judged to be promising but for one reason or another were not amenable to precise estimates of impact on child poverty.

The focus of Chapter 8 is on contextual factors that affect child poverty—from program administration to discriminatory behaviors and criminal justice policies and practices. These factors are not typically incorporated in the simulation models, but they can have a profound effect on the success of programs, providing useful infrastructure in some cases and interfering with policy, thereby creating “leaky buckets,” in others.

The final chapter ( Chapter 9 ) summarizes the committee’s recommendations and outlines a research agenda. Chapter 9 also discusses the importance of implementing high-quality monitoring and evaluation to measure progress and identify further steps.

Appendix A includes biosketches of committee members and project staff and Appendix B provides the agenda for the two public information-gathering sessions. Appendix C lists the individuals and organizations that submitted memos to the committee. Appendix D comprises the appendixes for Chapters 2 , 3 , 4 , and 5 . Appendix E includes the TRIM3 summary tables, and Appendix F contains the Urban Institute TRIM3 technical specifications.

Finally, a note on the overall organization of this report: As with all consensus reports produced by the National Academies, we provide evidence supporting all of our conclusions and recommendations. But in contrast to many of those reports, here the bulk of this evidence is presented in online appendixes associated with most of the chapters. Separating the detailed evidence in this way enabled us to write a shorter and, we hope, more accessible presentation of our analyses and conclusions. The online appendixes (D through F) are available on the National Academies Press webpage at http://www.nap.edu/25246 under the Resources tab.

Duncan, G.J., Ziol-Guest, K.M., and Kalil, A. (2010). Early childhood poverty and adult attainment, behavior, and health . Child Development, 81 (1), 306–325.

Ekono, M.M., Jiang, Y., and Smith, S. (2016). Young Children in Deep Poverty . Columbia University Academic Commons. Available: https://doi.org/10.7916/D86Q1X3 .

Fox, L. (2018). T he Supplemental Poverty Measure: 2017. Current Population Reports, P60265. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau.

Garfinkel, I., Smeeding, T., and Rainwater, L. (2010). Wealth and Welfare States: Is America a Laggard or Leader? New York: Oxford University Press.

Halpern-Meekin, S., Edin, K., Tach, L., and Sykes, J. (2015). It’s Not Like I’m Poor: How Working Families Make Ends Meet in a Post-Welfare World . Berkeley: University of California Press.

Hoynes, H.W., and Patel, A.J. (2017). Effective policy for reducing poverty and inequality? The Earned Income Tax Credit and the distribution of income. Journal of Human Resources . doi: 10.3368/jhr.53.4.1115.7494R1.

Isaacs, J.B., Lou, C., Hahn, H., Hong, A., Quakenbush, C., and Steuerle, C.E. (2018). Kids’ Share 2018: Report on Federal Expenditures on Children Through 2017 and Future Projections . Washington, DC: Urban Institute.

Lamont, M., and Small, M.L. (2008). How culture matters: Enriching our understandings of poverty. In A. Chih Lin and D.R. Harris (Eds.), The Colors of Poverty: Why Racial and Ethnic Disparities Persist (pp. 76–102). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

McLoyd, V.C. (1998). Socioeconomic disadvantage and child development. American Psychologist , 53 (2), 185.

Mullainathan, S., and Shafir, E. (2013). Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much . New York: Macmillan.

Sherman, A. (2018). Canadian-style Child Benefit Would Cut U.S. Child Poverty by More Than Half. Washington, DC: Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Available: https://www.cbpp.org/blog/canadian-style-child-benefit-would-cut-us-child-poverty-by-more-than-half .

Waldfogel, J. (2010). Britain’s War on Poverty . New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

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The strengths and abilities children develop from infancy through adolescence are crucial for their physical, emotional, and cognitive growth, which in turn help them to achieve success in school and to become responsible, economically self-sufficient, and healthy adults. Capable, responsible, and healthy adults are clearly the foundation of a well-functioning and prosperous society, yet America's future is not as secure as it could be because millions of American children live in families with incomes below the poverty line. A wealth of evidence suggests that a lack of adequate economic resources for families with children compromises these children's ability to grow and achieve adult success, hurting them and the broader society.

A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty reviews the research on linkages between child poverty and child well-being, and analyzes the poverty-reducing effects of major assistance programs directed at children and families. This report also provides policy and program recommendations for reducing the number of children living in poverty in the United States by half within 10 years.

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Poverty in America — impact of Poverty on Children and Families

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Impact of Poverty on Children and Families

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Published: Nov 8, 2019

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Introduction, service learning reflection, works cited.

  • America's Youngest Outcasts: State Report Card on Child Homelessness. (2014). National Center on Family Homelessness.
  • Children’s Defense Fund. (2015). Child poverty in the United States 2014: National and state fact sheets.
  • Deforge, B. R., Zehnder, S. M., Minick, P., & Carmon, M. (2001). Blaming the victim: Negative attitudes toward clients among homeless service providers. Journal of Social Service Research, 28(2), 33-52.
  • Douglass, A. (1996). All children can learn: The critical importance of investing in our nation’s youngest children. American Educator, 20(1), 8-13, 44-46.
  • Kilmer, R. P., Cook, J. R., Crusto, C., Strater, K. P., & Haber, M. G. (2012). Understanding the ecology and development of children and families experiencing homelessness: Implications for practice, supportive services, and policy. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 82(3), 389-401.
  • Nelson, G., & Prilleltensky, I. (2010). Community psychology: In pursuit of liberation and well-being (2nd ed.). Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Peirson, L. (2010). Child poverty and inequality: New perspectives. Journal of Children and Poverty, 16(2), 97-112.
  • Rafferty, Y., & Shinn, M. (1991). The impact of homelessness on children. American Psychologist, 46(11), 1170-1179.
  • St. Margaret’s Shelter. (2012). Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago.
  • United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). (2017). Child poverty in perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich countries. Innocenti Report Card 14.

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child poverty essay introduction

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TOP > Papers & Essays > Children's Rights & Well-being > Thinking about children's issues from the perspective of poverty

child poverty essay introduction

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Thinking about children's issues from the perspective of poverty, 1. introduction.

What are the differences between child poverty and adult poverty? Poverty is relentless at any age. However, what makes it much more heartrending for children is the likelihood that, depending on the case, its negative effects could last a lifetime even after having escaped the condition itself. Malnutrition inhibits healthy growth. A sense of self doesn't fully develop without experiences of being loved. Furthermore, once a child is left far behind in educational advancement, it is difficult to catch up with others. This means that child poverty casts a dark shadow not only over a child's present, but also over his/her future. In this regard, it is significantly different from adult poverty.

In addition, children, unlike adults, have no way to escape poverty on their own and just have to accept their harsh circumstances. Though, needless to say, escaping poverty through their own efforts is difficult for adults as well, it is incomparably more difficult for children. Also in this respect, our society has to use all available means to help children living in poverty.

During the last decade, poverty had suddenly become a topic of frequent discussion. This provided a viewpoint from which to re-discover child poverty; an issue that had long been left unattained. In order to rescue children from poverty, the problem needs to be continually recognized and should be shared as common knowledge in society.

2. One out of every six children in Japan is living in poverty

How is poverty defined and measured? The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) defines poverty as living in a household in which (equivalent) disposable income, when adjusted for family size and composition, is less than 50% of the national median income. The OECD uses a poverty line set at 50% of median income (OECD, Report Card 10). Disposable income is the total income of a household after income tax and social insurance fee deductions (so-called actual income). The poverty line in Japan is set at about JPY2,500,000 a year for a family of 4, though it changes slightly by year.

The poverty rate is the ratio of the number of people who fall below the poverty line. This is applied by many international organizations and researchers and is a very common way to measure the extent of the poverty. Based on this method, the child poverty rate is the ratio of the number of children aged 17 and under living in poverty.

The child poverty rate in Japan as reported by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare was 15.7% in 2009, which means one out of every six children was living poverty. When the administration of the Democratic Party of Japan announced the child poverty rate for the first time, 14.2% (as of 2006) was perceived as being shockingly high and this raised some questions. Furthermore, the rate is still increasing.

In May 2012, UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre announced the result of an international comparison of child poverty rates in economically advanced nations. According to this comparison, the child poverty rate in Japan is the ninth highest among 35 OECD countries. Considering that Japan has the world's third largest economy, the child poverty rate is remarkably high.

rights_2013_02_02.jpg

Figure 1. Changes by year (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare: National Livelihood Survey, 2010) *1. The poverty rate in 2004 does not include data from Hyogo prefecture. *2. The poverty rate is produced based on the definition used by the OECD. *3. An adult is a person aged 18 or over and a child is 17 or under. A working-age household is a household headed by a person aged 18- 64. *4. Household members whose equivalent incomes are not known are not included.

3. The poverty rate had been high even during the bubble economy

As these poverty rates in Japan were reported during a long-faltering economy, they tend to be taken as a sign of a stagnant economy. Feelings of resignation such as, "It's a recession, so it can't be helped," or "It's not only children who are suffering" are also pervasive. However, even in the past, the child poverty rates in Japan had been high compared to other countries. It was 10.9% in 1985 and 12.9% even in the bubble economy of 1988. It was higher than 14% during the booming economy under the Koizumi administration. Regardless of the state of the economy, government policies have continued to be insensitive toward impoverished child-rearing families.

The child poverty rate is measured by comparison of relative actual income, as seen in the definition of the OECD. This means that it varies depending on the economic circumstance of households with children or how society supports them economically, regardless of a nation's GDP.

According to data from UNICEF, the second highest child poverty rate (23.1%) is that of the United States, the world's wealthiest country. Also among economically advanced nations, the rate in Germany is 8.5% and in France 8.8%, far below the rate in Japan. In Germany and France, policies such as child allowance or elimination of tuition fees are substantial. The lowest rates have been achieved in four Nordic countries: Finland 5.3%, Norway 6.1%, Denmark 6.5% and Sweden 7.3%.

4. The child poverty rate can be improved

Aya Abe, researcher of the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research cites inefficiency of the government's efforts to reduce poverty as a main characteristic of child poverty in Japan. In other words, the child poverty rate hardly improves even after redistribution. Redistribution is the act of a government allocating money that the public has paid in taxes or social insurance fee back to the public in the form of benefits such as public assistance, child allowance and so forth. In general, after redistribution the rate is expected to improve. However, in Japan, the child poverty rate hardly changes before and after redistribution. During the Liberal Democratic Party's administration when child allowance had not yet been introduced, the rate was even higher after redistribution. To put it more clearly, Japanese society had spent money that its citizens had paid in taxes or social insurance fee mostly on the elderly, ignoring benefits for households with children.

Aya Abe also pointed to a prominently higher poverty rate among single-mother households as being a significant characteristic in Japan. Approximately 60% of single-mother households fall below the poverty line, which is quite unique to Japan among advanced countries. In Japan, employment is premised on the assumption that employees are given solid financial stability and a social position in exchange for being subservient to companies rather than just working for them. For that reason, stable employment for mothers, who have to devote a lot of time to child-rearing, is quite limited. Many of them are engaged in part time or temporary work for much lower wages under unstable employment, which means that they do not have any chance to receive a raise and can be dismissed at anytime. A nationwide survey of single-mother households in 2011 by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare shows that the average annual employment income among single mothers is just JPY1,810,000, about half of that among single fathers.

Furthermore, poverty among young people has recently become a serious problem. According to a labor force survey by the Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the percentage of non-regular employment among young people aged 15-24 is 45% for men and 55% for women, more than double compared to a decade ago. It can easily be imagined that the marriage rate among young people has drastically declined and that many young married couples with children are suffering from poverty.

What is understood from these findings is that the poverty rate can be improved by changing government policy, the nation's system and basically the whole concept of what society should be. The idea that economic growth and market revitalization are the only prescriptions against poverty is a falsehood. Improving the poverty rate depends on people's sense of value and what society thinks is important and puts priority on.

Figure 2: Child poverty rate, Report Card 10, Innocenti Research Centre, UNICEF ( http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/rc10_eng.pdf ) (Percentage of children living in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median)

5. Introducing the perspective of child poverty to Child Science

For those of us who study Child Science, what kind of meaning does it have to think about child poverty? The author has been editing a magazine that deals with children's issues over a number of years and is now in charge of general management of the Japanese Society of Child Science as a secretary-general. For close to two decades I have done feature magazine articles and have held symposiums and lectures concerning various children's problems while discussing these issues with many researchers and professionals in pedagogy, developmental psychology, pediatrics and so forth. However, rarely have we taken on these problems from the perspective of poverty.

However, in recent years, child poverty suddenly came to be an issue and when reading books about child poverty I cannot help but feel a sense of regret that many of the agendas we dealt with in the past could not bring about effective discussion due to a lack of perspective on poverty. For example, had we added the viewpoint of poverty to the problems of children, such as non-attendance at school, abuse, delinquency, low academic achievement and so forth, we would have had much more meaningful discussions that recognized the actual situations at hand. I find it unfortunate that this was not the case.

6. Reasons why poverty is hard to discuss

There are several reasons why the theme of poverty had not been brought up in discussing children's issues. The first was based on the unspoken agreement that we should not relate children's problems to poverty since it runs a risk of hurting the feelings of a needy family and of excluding them from the community. People in education were especially very sensitive about taking such a risk. Recently, many sociological surveys concerning the relation between academic ability and financial background were published and the term, "cycle of poverty" became commonly known even among ordinary people. However, until then, these ideas related to poverty had long been regarded as taboo.

Furthermore, research and surveys on poor families require a great deal of time and effort. It is difficult to ask about details of family finances from the aspect of privacy. Moreover, there may even be parents who feel outrage at having their family regarded as being poor or toward people who relate their child's problem to poverty. With the exception of sociologists whose main theme is the problem of poverty or researchers who are often in contact with poor families in order to support them from the viewpoint of child welfare, poverty is a very sensitive and difficult theme to deal with.

Still, I don't think the difficulty stems from those clear-cut reasons, but rather from the fact that most researchers simply do not have a clear image of poverty itself. From the beginning, researchers at universities had been raised without the experience of having contact with people from poor families. To have received years of education, including graduate school, in order to become a teacher of higher education, it would have been necessary for their parents to have had sufficient finances. Most researchers had been high-achieving students who entered a competitive school and had been raised surrounded by other bright children from a similar income bracket. Even when they try to do something about children's issues, there are very few researchers who can easily imagine the situations of families in extreme poverty or parents with low education. In addition to that, since pedagogy, psychology and so forth tend to base their research on an average child whose minimal economic circumstances are secured, children in poor families become farther and farther removed from researchers' awareness.

7. Excluded poor people in advanced nations

The truth of the matter is that the difficulty in raising awareness about poverty is deeply related to the nature of poverty. This becomes especially important when thinking about poverty in advanced nations.

There are some who say that though the poverty rate in Japan is increasing, its poverty level is still much better in comparison with levels in developing countries. But in fact, there are aspects in which poverty in advanced nations is more relentless than poverty in developing nations.

For example, in developing countries, poor people can be seen everywhere. On the streets there are various kinds of beggars and in the shadows there are prostitutes. Children plot to get tips by taking tourists to souvenir shops. The hungry try to get scraps of bread by hanging around restaurants. There, poverty is too pervasive to be hidden and there is less likelihood that a person will be excluded only because he or she is poor.

In contrast, in advanced countries, it is hard to recognize poverty so it tends to be excluded. In a prosperous society, poverty is uncommon; a phenomenon people want to refuse to acknowledge if possible. It is not an issue everyone wants to share. Especially, in a society like Japan where people put importance on cleanliness and homogeneity, impoverished people are likely to hesitate to reveal their plight. There are even those who commit suicide not because of poverty itself but because of the shame they feel about being poor.

There are societies in which hungry people, far from being able to enjoy a delicious meal themselves, cannot even approach someone having a feast right before their eyes and in which uneaten food is simply thrown in the trash. On the other hand, there are societies in which everyone is so terribly hungry that they fall over each other to get food without the least bit of shame. Both are relentless, but the nature of their plight is different.

Pressure to exclude the poor is stronger in advanced countries than in developing ones. People who have fallen into poverty are likely to be excluded from employment, the social system, family and society, and have nowhere to go. They are then erased from the minds of people who are living an ordinary life. Children in poor families are in a similarly vulnerable situation. That is why we should make a conscious effort to raise the issue of child poverty.

8. Getting over the difficulty of looking at poverty

Makoto Yuasa, a former advisor to the Cabinet Office who has been working for homeless people and advocating for their rights stated that, "The most prominent characteristic of poverty is that it's invisible, which makes it difficult to grasp the problems and actual situations involved." He then added that, "Seeing or visualizing poverty concurrently includes trying to see circumstances and conditions of people in poverty that we cannot see from the surface.

Poverty is not only a financial plight. It includes various problems that are derived from poverty. Trouble in daily life is often seen as being caused not by poverty, but by personality problems. In this way, impoverished people are sometimes excluded from society rather than rescued by it. For example, children who are neglected by parents who are struggling to make a living are at a risk of being negatively labeled as just dirty, sloppy, or stupid.

There is an excellent way of thinking in the field of child welfare that states, "Troublesome children are children in trouble." Whenever discussing children's issues, the topic of troubled children must be raised. Problems may be seen in a completely different light if they are considered from the perspective of child poverty.

We have to strengthen our ability to imagine in order to address children's problems.

The original essay was written in Japanese and published in JAPANESE JOURNAL OF CLINICAL DENTISTRY FOR CHILDREN ® on Dec. 2012 (vol. 17, no. 12) as the second part of a series titled "Syouni shikai ga shitteokitai kodomogaku (Child Science that Pedodontists Should Know). Child Research Net would like to thank the Japanese Society of Practitioners for pediatric Dentistry for permitting translation and reproduction of this article on the CRN website.

  • "Child Poverty", Aya Abe, Iwanami Shinsho, 2008
  • Summary of Nation's Livelihood Research, 2010 , from the website of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare
  • "Child Poverty - The Actual Situation in Japan", NHK Viewpoint and Issue, Aya Abe, broadcasted on June 5, 2012
  • Survey of Single-mother Households 2011 , from the website of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare
  • "Anti-poverty", Makoto Yuasa, Iwanami Shinsho, 2008
  • Children's quality of life
  • Post-Slumdog Millionaire in Light of Slum Children of India
  • Children who Parent their Parents and Outcomes from Feelings of Abandonment
  • Educational Support for Children with Foreign Backgrounds: Impact of Parents' Japanese Language Skills on Children's Japanese Proficiency and Future Careers
  • What a "Friend" Means to Children Living in Foster Homes
  • Why Are Children's Cafeterias Needed Now?

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  • Child Development

Child Poverty in the United States

Updated 23 August 2023

Subject Child Development

Downloads 45

Category Life ,  Family ,  Psychology

Topic Childhood

Poverty and its Impact

Poverty is considered to be one of the major issues affecting developing countries. However, it is important to note that is not an issue affecting developing countries in isolation but instead affects developed countries as well. the only difference is that the extent of poverty in developing countries is much critical than in developed countries.

The United States, a country famed for its economic power contends with the issue of poverty but that does not undermine its supremacy in various sectors especially considering its relentless efforts to alleviate this problem. Specifically, the US is focused on alleviating child poverty. Research has shown that about one in every five children is on in poverty in the united states. In fact, there have been assertions that child poverty in the united states is much higher than in other developed countries (Hymowitz, 2017). In a bid to gain better insight into this issue, this research will focus on discussing child poverty including statistics, milestones that have achieved so far and provided possible solutions to alleviate this problem completely.

Summary of Child poverty in the US

The federal government maintains a threshold upon which the wealth of households is measured. According to NCCP.org, (2018), about 15 million of children in the united states are born and live in families that have incomes that fall below the federal poverty threshold. This is estimated to be about 21% of all the children in the united states. Notably, these children do not live like that because they lack guardians. To the contrary. The reasons condemning these children to this kind of life include low wages and unstable employment for their guardians. These can be attributed to ills such as discrimination, lack of equal opportunity and unavailability of quality education among others. While poverty in itself is a critical issue that needs to be addressed what’s worse is the adverse effects that poverty has on children living in poor families. Poverty can get in the way of a child’s ability to learn, affect their emotional well-being, social skills and even cause them to develop behavioral problems to mention but a few. Children who have experienced deep persistent poverty from a very young age are considered to be most prone to these problems. A continuous cycle of poverty tampers with a child’s cognition making them think and even believe that things can’t get better regardless of the effort one puts in.

The Extent of Child Poverty in the US

Among all of the things that threaten a child’s wellbeing, poverty is thought to be the greatest and assertion that is backed by empirical evidence. The extent of child poverty in the US calls for urgent action especially considering that there are more children living in poverty in the country than adults. Notably, while it is estimated that 1 in every 5 children live in poverty, it is estimated that about 1 out of 8 adults live in poverty (Children.org, 2018). Furthermore, research has shown that among the developed nations, Mexico, Greece, Turkey, and Israel are the only countries that have higher child poverty rates than the US. In addition to that, it is estimated that about 40% of children in the US are forced to live in poverty for at least a year before they hit the age of 18 (Children.org, 2018). One might argue that the government has many pressing issues that should get priority over child poverty but again satisfying such issues will not make any sense if there will be no future generation to carry on the work. The value offered by children is unparalleled but that is dependent on how well they are taken care of from attender age to a point that they can fend for themselves.

The Role of the Government and Private Institutions

There are some private institutions that have relentlessly rallied efforts to help alleviate child poverty globally and even in the US specifically. One such organization is the Child Poverty Action Group. This notwithstanding, the biggest contributor to alleviating child poverty ought to be the government, something that has not be witnessed in some years in the past. during the period between 2012-2014, the level of government spending on child nutrition, social services, and education declined. Moreover, it is estimated that the government spends only 10% of its national budget as its contribution to children welfare (Children.org, 2018). In comparison, this is a mere fraction of what other developed countries spend on children which explains the extent of child poverty in the US. It goes without saying that children subject to poverty are highly likely to experience huger which is extremely risky considering that hunger is considered to have lifelong effects on the victims. Some of these long-term effects include frequent metal and health problems, behavioral and emotional challenges and even low scores in mathematics.

Milestones in Alleviating Child Poverty

Despite the significance of child poverty in the US, it is only fitting to highlight some of the milestones that have been achieved so far. The government has been targeting an unemployment rate of about 6.5% as at 2017, the economy was nearing full employment.in addition, the rate of child poverty reached a record low in 2016, a significant milestone considering the need to alleviate this problem (Lowrey, 2017). Specifically, the child poverty rate dropped to about 15.6% in 2016 implying that about 11.5 million children are living in poverty (Children.org, 2018). Notably, the drop is child poverty in the US is attributed to the establishment of a tighter labor market. To this end, more parents have been able to secure more jobs and the competition in the labor market has consequently driven the wages higher even for those who initially earned low incomes. The significant decrease in child poverty in about half a century cannot be attributed to improved economic conditions. In fact, the stagnation of low wages for years and reduced bargaining power has held back low-income families and income inequality has only benefitted the families enjoying higher incomes. Thus the decrease in child poverty is largely attributed to the expansion of the safety net through provisions such as Child Tax Credit, Income Tax credit, and food stamp programs.

Recommendations

While statistics show that child poverty has declined over the last number of years, the fact that there is still a large number of children living in poverty means more measures need to be implemented. One of such measures could be creating a welfare kitty specifically to cater for children living in low-income families. In this way, the children will be guaranteed of good education despite the hardships at home. Secondly, labor unions should seek for the reinforcement of equality in employment and fair and equitable remuneration. To this end, every employed person should be paid a salary that effectively places them above the federal poverty threshold.

Children.org, C. (2018). Facts About Child Poverty in the U.S.A. | Children International | US Poverty Facts. Children's International. Retrieved 4 March 2018, from https://www.children.org/global-poverty/global-poverty-facts/facts-about-poverty-in-usa

Hymowitz, K. (2017). The hidden driver of high US child-poverty rates. New York Post. Retrieved 4 March 2018, from https://nypost.com/2017/10/30/the-hidden-driver-of-high-us-child-poverty-rates/

Lowrey, A. (2017). America's Child-Poverty Rate Has Hit a Record Low. The Atlantic. Retrieved 4 March 2018, from https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/10/child-poverty-rate-record-low/542058/

Nccp.org, N. (2018). NCCP | Child Poverty. Nccp.org. Retrieved 4 March 2018, from http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html

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7 Essays About Poverty: Example Essays and Prompts

Essays about poverty give valuable insight into the economic situation that we share globally. Read our guide with poverty essay examples and prompts for your paper.

In the US, the official poverty rate in 2022 was 11.5 percent, with 37.9 million people living below the poverty line. With a global pandemic, cost of living crisis, and climate change on the rise, we’ve seen poverty increase due to various factors. As many of us face adversity daily, we can look to essays about poverty from some of the world’s greatest speakers for inspiration and guidance.

There is nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American citizen whether he be a hospital worker, laundry worker, maid or day laborer. There is nothing except shortsightedness to prevent us from guaranteeing an annual minimum—and livable—income for every American family. Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

Writing a poverty essay can be challenging due to the many factors contributing to poverty and the knock-on effects of living below the poverty line . For example, homelessness among low-income individuals stems from many different causes.

It’s important to note that poverty exists beyond the US, with many developing countries living in extreme poverty without access to essentials like clean water and housing. For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers .

Essays About Poverty: Top Examples

1. pensioner poverty: fear of rise over decades as uk under-40s wealth falls, 2. the surprising poverty levels across the u.s., 3. why poverty persists in america, 4. post-pandemic poverty is rising in america’s suburbs.

  • 5. The Basic Facts About Children in Poverty
  • 6. The State of America’s Children 
  • 7. COVID-19: This is how many Americans now live below the poverty line

10 Poverty Essay Topics

1. the causes of poverty, 2. the negative effects of poverty, 3. how countries can reduce poverty rates, 4. the basic necessities and poverty, 5. how disabilities can lead to poverty, 6. how the cycle of poverty unfolds , 7. universal basic income and its relationship to poverty, 8. interview someone who has experience living in poverty, 9. the impact of the criminal justice system on poverty, 10. the different ways to create affordable housing.

There is growing concern about increasing pensioner poverty in the UK in the coming decades. Due to financial challenges like the cost of living crisis, rent increases, and the COVID-19 pandemic, under 40s have seen their finances shrink.

Osborne discusses the housing wealth gap in this article, where many under the 40s currently pay less in a pension due to rent prices. While this means they will have less pension available, they will also retire without owning a home, resulting in less personal wealth than previous generations. Osborne delves into the causes and gaps in wealth between generations in this in-depth essay.

“Those under-40s have already been identified as  facing the biggest hit from rising mortgage rates , and last week a study by the financial advice firm Hargreaves Lansdown found that almost a third of 18- to 34-year-olds had stopped or cut back on their pension contributions in order to save money.” Hilary Osborne,  The Guardian

In this 2023 essay, Jeremy Ney looks at the poverty levels across the US, stating that poverty has had the largest one-year increase in history. According to the most recent census, child poverty has more than doubled from 2021 to 2022.

Ney states that the expiration of government support and inflation has created new financial challenges for US families. With the increased cost of living and essential items like food and housing sharply increasing, more and more families have fallen below the poverty line. Throughout this essay, Ney displays statistics and data showing the wealth changes across states, ethnic groups, and households.

“Poverty in America reflects the inequality that plagues U.S. households. While certain regions have endured this pain much more than others, this new rising trend may spell ongoing challenges for even more communities.” Jeremy Ney,  TIME

Essays About Poverty: How countries can reduce poverty rates?

In this New York Times article, a Pulitzer Prize-winning sociologist explores why poverty exists in North America.

The American poor have access to cheap, mass-produced goods, as every American does. But that doesn’t mean they can access what matters most. Matthew Desmond,  The New York Times

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released its annual data on poverty, revealing contrasting trends for 2022. While one set of findings indicated that the overall number of Americans living in poverty remained stable compared to the previous two years, another survey highlighted a concerning increase in child poverty. The rate of child poverty in the U.S. doubled from 2021 to 2022, a spike attributed mainly to the cessation of the expanded child tax credit following the pandemic. These varied outcomes underscore the Census Bureau’s multifaceted methods to measure poverty.

“The nation’s suburbs accounted for the majority of increases in the poor population following the onset of the pandemic” Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube,  Brookings

5.  The Basic Facts About Children in Poverty

Nearly 11 million children are living in poverty in America. This essay explores ow the crisis reached this point—and what steps must be taken to solve it.

“In America, nearly 11 million children are poor. That’s 1 in 7 kids, who make up almost one-third of all people living in poverty in this country.” Areeba Haider,  Center for American Progress

6.  The State of America’s Children  

This essay articles how, despite advancements, children continue to be the most impoverished demographic in the U.S., with particular subgroups — such as children of color, those under five, offspring of single mothers, and children residing in the South — facing the most severe poverty levels.

“Growing up in poverty has wide-ranging, sometimes lifelong, effects on children, putting them at a much higher risk of experiencing behavioral, social, emotional, and health challenges. Childhood poverty also plays an instrumental role in impairing a child’s ability and capacity to learn, build skills, and succeed academically.” Children’s Defense Fund

7.  COVID-19: This is how many Americans now live below the poverty line

This essay explores how the economic repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic 2020 led to a surge in U.S. poverty rates, with unemployment figures reaching unprecedented heights. The writer provides data confirming that individuals at the lowest economic strata bore the brunt of these challenges, indicating that the recession might have exacerbated income disparities, further widening the chasm between the affluent and the underprivileged.

“Poverty in the U.S. increased in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic hammered the economy and unemployment soared. Those at the bottom of the economic ladder were hit hardest, new figures confirm, suggesting that the recession may have widened the gap between the rich and the poor.” Elena Delavega,  World Econmic Forum

If you’re tasked with writing an essay about poverty, consider using the below topics. They offer pointers for outlining and planning an essay about this challenging topic.

One of the most specific poverty essay topics to address involves the causes of poverty. You can craft an essay to examine the most common causes of extreme poverty. Here are a few topics you might want to include:

  • Racial discrimination, particularly among African Americans, has been a common cause of poverty throughout American history. Discrimination and racism can make it hard for people to get the education they need, making it nearly impossible to get a job.
  • A lack of access to adequate health care can also lead to poverty. When people do not have access to healthcare, they are more likely to get sick. This could make it hard for them to go to work while also leading to major medical bills.
  • Inadequate food and water can lead to poverty as well. If people’s basic needs aren’t met, they focus on finding food and water instead of getting an education they can use to find a better job.

These are just a few of the most common causes of poverty you might want to highlight in your essay. These topics could help people see why some people are more likely to become impoverished than others. You might also be interested in these essays about poverty .

Poverty affects everyone, and the impacts of an impoverished lifestyle are very real. Furthermore, the disparities when comparing adult poverty to child poverty are also significant. This opens the doors to multiple possible essay topics. Here are a few points to include:

  • When children live in poverty, their development is stunted. For example, they might not be able to get to school on time due to a lack of transportation, making it hard for them to keep up with their peers. Child poverty also leads to malnutrition, which can stunt their development.
  • Poverty can impact familial relationships as well. For example, members of the same family could fight for limited resources, making it hard for family members to bond. In addition, malnutrition can stunt the growth of children.
  • As a side effect of poverty, people have difficulty finding a safe place to live. This creates a challenging environment for everyone involved, and it is even harder for children to grow and develop.
  • When poverty leads to homelessness, it is hard for someone to get a job. They don’t have an address to use for physical communication, which leads to employment concerns.

These are just a few of the many side effects of poverty. Of course, these impacts are felt by people across the board, but it is not unusual for children to feel the effects of poverty that much more. You might also be interested in these essays about unemployment .

Different countries take different approaches to reduce the number of people living in poverty

The issue of poverty is a major human rights concern, and many countries explore poverty reduction strategies to improve people’s quality of life. You might want to examine different strategies that different countries are taking while also suggesting how some countries can do more. A few ways to write this essay include:

  • Explore the poverty level in America, comparing it to the poverty level of a European country. Then, explore why different countries take different strategies.
  • Compare the minimum wage in one state, such as New York, to the minimum wage in another state, such as Alabama. Why is it higher in one state? What does raising the minimum wage do to the cost of living?
  • Highlight a few advocacy groups and nonprofit organizations actively lobbying their governments to do more for low-income families. Then, talk about why some efforts are more successful than others.

Different countries take different approaches to reduce the number of people living in poverty. Poverty within each country is such a broad topic that you could write a different essay on how poverty could be decreased within the country. For more, check out our list of simple essays topics for intermediate writers .

You could also write an essay on the necessities people need to survive. You could take a look at information published by the United Nations , which focuses on getting people out of the cycle of poverty across the globe. The social problem of poverty can be addressed by giving people the necessities they need to survive, particularly in rural areas. Here are some of the areas you might want to include:

  • Affordable housing
  • Fresh, healthy food and clean water
  • Access to an affordable education
  • Access to affordable healthcare

Giving everyone these necessities could significantly improve their well-being and get people out of absolute poverty. You might even want to talk about whether these necessities vary depending on where someone is living.

There are a lot of medical and social issues that contribute to poverty, and you could write about how disabilities contribute to poverty. This is one of the most important essay topics because people could be disabled through no fault of their own. Some of the issues you might want to address in this essay include:

  • Talk about the road someone faces if they become disabled while serving overseas. What is it like for people to apply for benefits through the Veterans’ Administration?
  • Discuss what happens if someone becomes disabled while at work. What is it like for someone to pursue disability benefits if they are hurt doing a blue-collar job instead of a desk job?
  • Research and discuss the experiences of disabled people and how their disability impacts their financial situation.

People who are disabled need to have money to survive for many reasons, such as the inability to work, limitations at home, and medical expenses. A lack of money, in this situation, can lead to a dangerous cycle that can make it hard for someone to be financially stable and live a comfortable lifestyle.

Many people talk about the cycle of poverty, yet many aren’t entirely sure what this means or what it entails. A few key points you should address in this essay include:

  • When someone is born into poverty, income inequality can make it hard to get an education.
  • A lack of education makes it hard for someone to get into a good school, which gives them the foundation they need to compete for a good job. 
  • A lack of money can make it hard for someone to afford college, even if they get into a good school.
  • Without attending a good college, it can be hard for someone to get a good job. This makes it hard for someone to support themselves or their families. 
  • Without a good paycheck, it is nearly impossible for someone to keep their children out of poverty, limiting upward mobility into the middle class.

The problem of poverty is a positive feedback loop. It can be nearly impossible for those who live this every day to escape. Therefore, you might want to explore a few initiatives that could break the cycle of world poverty and explore other measures that could break this feedback loop.

Many business people and politicians have floated the idea of a universal basic income to give people the basic resources they need to survive. While this hasn’t gotten a lot of serious traction, you could write an essay to shed light on this idea. A few points to hit on include:

  • What does a universal basic income mean, and how is it distributed?
  • Some people are concerned about the impact this would have on taxes. How would this be paid for?
  • What is the minimum amount of money someone would need to stay out of poverty? Is it different in different areas?
  • What are a few of the biggest reasons major world governments haven’t passed this?

This is one of the best essay examples because it gives you a lot of room to be creative. However, there hasn’t been a concrete structure for implementing this plan, so you might want to afford one.

Another interesting topic you might want to explore is interviewing someone living in poverty or who has been impoverished. While you can talk about statistics all day, they won’t be as powerful as interviewing someone who has lived that life. A few questions you might want to ask during your interview include:

  • What was it like growing up?
  • How has living in poverty made it hard for you to get a job?
  • What do you feel people misunderstand about those who live in poverty?
  • When you need to find a meal, do you have a place you go to? Or is it somewhere different every day?
  • What do you think is the main contributor to people living in poverty?

Remember that you can also craft different questions depending on your responses. You might want to let the interviewee read the essay when you are done to ensure all the information is accurate and correct.

The criminal justice system and poverty tend to go hand in hand. People with criminal records are more likely to be impoverished for several reasons. You might want to write an essay that hits on some of these points:

  • Discuss the discriminatory practices of the criminal justice system both as they relate to socioeconomic status and as they relate to race.
  • Explore just how hard it is for someone to get a job if they have a criminal record. Discuss how this might contribute to a life of poverty.
  • Dive into how this creates a positive feedback loop. For example, when someone cannot get a job due to a criminal record, they might have to steal to survive, which worsens the issue.
  • Review what the criminal justice system might be like for someone with resources when compared to someone who cannot afford to hire expert witnesses or pay for a good attorney.

You might want to include a few examples of disparate sentences for people in different socioeconomic situations to back up your points. 

The different ways to create affordable housing

Affordable housing can make a major difference when someone is trying to escape poverty

Many poverty-related problems could be reduced if people had access to affordable housing. While the cost of housing has increased dramatically in the United States , some initiatives exist to create affordable housing. Here are a few points to include:

  • Talk about public programs that offer affordable housing to people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
  • Discuss private programs, such as Habitat for Humanity , doing similar things.
  • Review the positive impacts that stable housing has on both adults and children.
  • Dive into other measures local and federal governments could take to provide more affordable housing for people.

There are a lot of political and social angles to address with this essay, so you might want to consider spreading this out across multiple papers. Affordable housing can make a major difference when trying to escape poverty. If you want to learn more, check out our essay writing tips !

child poverty essay introduction

Meet Rachael, the editor at Become a Writer Today. With years of experience in the field, she is passionate about language and dedicated to producing high-quality content that engages and informs readers. When she's not editing or writing, you can find her exploring the great outdoors, finding inspiration for her next project.

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Poverty: A Very Short Introduction

Poverty: A Very Short Introduction

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Millions of people worldwide live in poverty. Why is that? What has been done about it in the past? And what is being done about it now? Poverty: A Very Short Introduction explores how the answers to these questions lie in the social, political, economic, educational, and technological processes that impact all of us throughout our lives—from the circumstances of birth and gender to access to clean water and whether it is wartime or peacetime. The degree of vulnerability is all that differentiates us. This VSI looks at the history of poverty, the practical and analytical efforts made to eradicate it, and the prospects for further poverty alleviation in the future.

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IMAGES

  1. Essay on Poverty

    child poverty essay introduction

  2. The Cause and Effect of Child Poverty Free Essay Example

    child poverty essay introduction

  3. (PDF) The Effects of Poverty on Children

    child poverty essay introduction

  4. 🏷️ Child poverty essay introduction. Essay On Child Poverty. 2022-10-22

    child poverty essay introduction

  5. Causes and Effect of Childhood Poverty Free Essay Example

    child poverty essay introduction

  6. Paragraph On Poverty 100, 150, 200, 250 to 300 Words for Kids, Students

    child poverty essay introduction

COMMENTS

  1. Full article: Rethinking Child Poverty

    1. Introduction. Child poverty is an issue of global concern; not only because of the disturbingly high number of children affected (Alkire Citation 2019, 35-36; World Bank Citation 2016, Citation 2020), but also because of the deleterious impact on their human flourishing and wellbeing, both now and in the future.White, Leavy, and Masters (Citation 2003, 80) argue that child development is ...

  2. Poverty Essay for Students and Children

    Poverty Essay for Students and Children 500+ Words Essay on Poverty Essay "Poverty is the worst form of violence". - Mahatma Gandhi. We can define poverty as the condition where the basic needs of a family, like food, shelter, clothing, and education are not fulfilled.

  3. Children And Poverty Children And Young People Essay

    More than 10 million children are deprived of one or more of their rights, which include the right of nutrition, water, sanitation, access to basic health care, shelter, education, and protection (Aratani). 6 million children under six years old are homeless, never has received medical care and suffer from malnutrition.

  4. Child Poverty in the United States: A Tale of Devastation and the

    SECTION I: Introduction. In 2014, 15.5 million children—or 21.1% of children under age 18—lived in families with incomes below the federal poverty line, making children the largest group of poor people in the United States (DeNavas-Walt & Proctor 2015).Rates are even higher for the youngest children: 25% of children under age 3 are poor (Jiang et al. 2015).

  5. An Essay on Poverty and Child Neglect: New Interventions

    Millions of America's children are suffering in extreme poverty and hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of those children are also the victims of child neglect.1 The intertwined problems of child poverty and child neglect have been a concern of policy makers and scholars since the advent of the modern child welfare system.2 Reliance on tra...

  6. Essays on Child Poverty

    Essays on Child Poverty Essay examples Essay topics 24 essay samples found 1 Life in Poverty: Defying The Odds 1 page / 438 words My life as a fourth-born in a poor family was not one anyone would wish to experience, especially at a young age. My parents, who were never able to attend elementary school, struggled to take care of the family.

  7. Child Poverty Essay

    9 Pages Decent Essays Preview child poverty Child poverty in the U.K Introduction Child poverty is becoming more of a big issue now more than ever in the U.K, with so many people unemployed and living on benefits. Children across the country are being deprived of basic living standards.

  8. A Difficult Childhood: Effects of Poverty on Child Development: [Essay

    In American society, the Federal Poverty line is first established in the year 1960 and the official Federal poverty threshold was formed in the year 1995, like the following: for a family of 3 people with one child the income limit is $12,158 and for a family of 4 with two children it is $15,569.

  9. Introduction (Chapter 1)

    Child Poverty Aspiring to Survive , pp. 1 - 18 DOI: https://doi.org/10.46692/9781447334675.002 Publisher: Bristol University Press Print publication year: 2020 Access options Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below.

  10. 1 Introduction

    Using the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) threshold of about $25,000 for a family of four, in 2017 the U.S. Census Bureau counted more than 11 million U.S. children—nearly one-sixth of all our children—living in families with incomes that fell short of that poverty line (Fox, 2018).1It also determined that 3.5 million of those children were l...

  11. Childhood Poverty Essay

    8 Pages Child Poverty Essay Poverty is not simply a deficiency in material resources, it is the complex situation of low income that limits ones access to many of the social determinants of health such as safe and suitable housing, food, child care, education, and can lead to social exclusion (Séguin et al, 2012).

  12. Impact of Poverty on Children and Families

    Introduction. In this paper I evaluate the impact of poverty on children and families and the ways in which a community can help change these conditions of marginalization. As of 2014 there are 14.7 million poor children in the United States, which is "the second highest child poverty rate among 35 industrialized countries despite having the ...

  13. The Effect of Poverty on Child Development and Educational Outcomes

    The link between poverty and low academic achievement has been well established. 15 Low-income children are at increased risk of leaving school without graduating, resulting in inflation-adjusted earnings in the United States that declined 16% from 1979 to 2005, averaging slightly over $10/hour. 15 Evidence from the National Institute of Child ...

  14. Child Poverty Essay

    Child Poverty Introduction Poverty exposes children to other risks related to education, environment, safety, and health. Compared to their peers not subjected to hardship, needy children are more likely to experience cognitive, socioemotional, and behavioral challenges.

  15. Essay On Childhood Poverty

    Specifically, Sub-Saharan Africa has both the highest rates of children living in extreme poverty at just under 49 %, and the largest share of the world's extremely poor children, at just over 51%. 2 in 3 children suffer from childhood poverty, and according to Unicef, over 30% of Indian children lived in …show more content…

  16. Thinking about children's issues from the perspective of poverty

    The child poverty rate in Japan as reported by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare was 15.7% in 2009, which means one out of every six children was living poverty. When the administration of the Democratic Party of Japan announced the child poverty rate for the first time, 14.2% (as of 2006) was perceived as being shockingly high and ...

  17. Child Poverty in the United States

    Summary of Child poverty in the US. The federal government maintains a threshold upon which the wealth of households is measured. According to NCCP.org, (2018), about 15 million of children in the united states are born and live in families that have incomes that fall below the federal poverty threshold. This is estimated to be about 21% of all ...

  18. 7 Essays About Poverty: Example Essays And Prompts

    Essays about poverty give valuable insight into the economic situation that we share globally. Read our guide with poverty essay examples and prompts for your paper. In the US, the official poverty rate in 2022 was 11.5 percent, with 37.9 million people living below the poverty line.

  19. Causes Of Child Poverty In The Uk Social Work Essay

    The links between child poverty and disability are plainly apparent. According to Gordon and Heslop (1999), families with a disabled child are among some of the 'poorest of the poor'. Poverty also affects those children living in families where there are adults with disabilities and long-term sickness.

  20. Persuasive Essay On Child Poverty

    In the introduction of this essay we will be looking at 'what is child poverty?' Poverty is often associated with the third world and developing countries where death from starvation and disease is the outcome. ... Child poverty is unfortunately a result of adult poverty with Child poverty having lifelong consequences. There are 3.5 million ...

  21. Poverty: A Very Short Introduction

    The Introduction outlines the pervasiveness and trends in poverty around the world; the many different causes of poverty that embed themselves in social, political, economic, educational, and technological processes, which affect all of us from birth to death; and considers why poverty matters. Overall, the economy suffers if systematic public ...

  22. Poverty in Children Photo Essay Assignment

    Photo Essay: Children in Poverty. Columbia Southern University SOC 1010: Introduction to Sociology. Photo Essay: Children in Poverty. Image 1: Children living in horrible conditions across the globe (Child Poverty, 2019). This little boy is wearing a dress due to the poverty. There clothes are not ideal. They are rugged and dirty.

  23. Poverty: A Very Short Introduction

    Poverty: A Very Short Introduction explores how the answers to these questions lie in the social, political, economic, educational, and technological processes that impact all of us throughout our lives—from the circumstances of birth and gender to access to clean water and whether it is wartime or peacetime. The degree of vulnerability is ...