Child Poverty – America and Connecticut are failing our youngest… - Wait What?:
Child Poverty – America and Connecticut are failing our youngest…
In 2001, a Connecticut Commission set the goal of reducing child poverty by 50% over the next decade. Ten years later, the poverty rate hadn’t gone down, in fact it had doubled.
And the problem remains as severe today, a decade and a half after the state of Connecticut committed to make a profound impact on the level of child poverty in the state.
As Connecticut Voices for Children recently reported,
In Connecticut today, child poverty for non-Hispanic white children is 6 percent, compared to 33 percent for Latino children and 28 for black children. The child poverty rate in Stamford (6.7 percent) contrasts dramatically with that in New Haven (46.6 percent).
In 2015, 14.5 percent of the state’s children (more than 100,000) lived in poverty, more than three percentage points higher than pre-recession levels.
Child poverty rates across many cities and counties are more than double the statewide average and 25 times more than in the state’s wealthiest towns
But as CT Voices goes on to explain,
Over the past twenty-five years, the share of our budget dedicated to children has fallen by a quarter, from 40 to 29.5 percent. It should come as no surprise that as state policy priorities have moved away from children and families, the existing disparities in wellbeing and opportunity have only grown.
