Black Children in U.S. Are Much More Likely to Live in Poverty, Study Finds
WASHINGTON — Black children were almost four times as likely as white children to be living in poverty in 2013, a new report has found, the latest evidence that the economic recovery is leaving behind some of the United States’ most vulnerable citizens.
The share of American children living in poverty fell to about 20 percent in 2013 from 22 percent in 2010, according to the report by the Pew Research Center, which analyzed data from the United States Census Bureau.
But the poverty rate remained stable for black children, while it fell for Hispanic, white and Asian children, a sign of just how pervasive and stubborn poverty has been for African-Americans, according to the report. About 38.3 percent of black children lived in poverty in 2013, nearly four times the rate for white children, at 10.7 percent. About 30.4 percent of Hispanic children and 10.1 percent of Asian children live in poverty.
For the first time since the federal government started collecting the data, the number of black children in poverty appears to have overtaken the number of poor white children, even though white children far outnumber black children in the American population, the report said. About 4.2 million black children were living in poverty in 2013, compared with 4.1 million white children, though researchers said the difference was not statistically significant.
A household in poverty in 2013 was defined as a family of four, two of whose members were children, living on an annual income of less than $23,624.
In actual numbers, there were still more Hispanic children in poverty, 5.4 million, than any other group, researchers said, a ranking the group has held since at least 2008. The Hispanic population is larger and younger than any other racial or ethnic group, and the child poverty rate is relatively high.
Eileen Patten, a research analyst who tracks social trends at the Pew Research Center, said she and a colleague had discovered the pattern while updating a routine graphic, and decided to bring it to light.
“The fact that the trajectory has been different for blacks than for these other groups, that caught our attention,” she said. “We were surprised the story had not been told like this since this data had been around for a while.”
The census data was released in the fall.
Researchers did not investigate the reasons black children were lagging. One possible driver was the unemployment rate, which has been consistently higher for African-Americans than for most other racial and ethnic groups, and which took longer to fall after the recession, Ms. Patten said.
The child poverty rate is closely related to the unemployment rate, as children are more likely to be poor if their parents are unemployed.Black Children in U.S. Are Much More Likely to Live in Poverty, Study Finds - The New York Times: