Mississippi’s child poverty rate is twice as high as Lithuania’s. Why are we OK with that?
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Here’s a question. If the United States’s child poverty rate ranks second-worst among the world’s developed countries, and Mississippi has the highest child poverty rate in the U.S., then how do Mississippi’s kids stack up globally? We wouldn’t even be on the chart.
Over 35 percent of Mississippi’s children fall under the international poverty standard as defined by this report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Compare that to 24 percent in Romania, the highest rate in the developed world:
Before we go any further, a caveat: the UNICEF report defines poverty as less than 50 percent of national median household income — a relative measure that doesn’t offer comparisons about absolute well-being across countries. Americans make four times as much as the average Eastern European (and 10-20 times more than the average Sub-Saharan African), so most of Mississippi’s underserved children are materially better off than comparable populations in poorer countries.
Nevertheless, child poverty is best understood in a domestic context because its implications for opportunity and mobility, two foundational ingredients of America’s national identity. Mississippi
