Post written by Laura Speer, associate director for Policy Reform and Data at the Annie E. Casey Foundation
Success should be in the grasp of all children, no matter where they live. However, the opportunities available to children based on their neighborhood vary dramatically across the United States. For the 8 million U.S. children living in high-poverty neighborhoods, critical resources for their healthy growth and development—including high-performing schools, quality medical care, and safe outdoor spaces—are often out of reach. TheKIDS COUNT project at the Annie E. Casey Foundation tracks the well-being of children and families in the United States and provides information for data-based advocacy. This means being the go-to place for data on children and families and we do that by partnering with local child advocacy organizations to track data on children at the national, state, and local levels.
Most recently, we looked at new data available at the community-level and found five major data points thathighlight the wide reach of high-poverty areas and the impact it has on us all.
- There are more children than ever living in high-poverty areas. Nearly 8 million U.S. children live in high-poverty areas—about 1.6 million more since 2000, a 25 percent increase.
- Eleven percent of the nation's children are growing up in areas where at least 30 percent of residents live below the federal poverty level—about $22,000 per year for a family of four.
- Nearly all states saw the number of children in high-poverty neighborhoods climb over the last decade. States with the highest rates were Mississippi (23 percent), New Mexico (20 percent), and Louisiana (18