The Children of America - The Economic Situation Of Children

Children living in single-mother households represented 22.8% of all children living in families. Yet they also represented 51.7% of children living below poverty level, 62.3% of children receiving public assistance, and 61.1% of children receiving food stamps. By contrast, the 68.7% of children who lived with two parents represented just 31.8% of children living below poverty level. The percentage of children of single fathers living below poverty level was quite similar to their representation in the total population of children. (See Table 3.6.)

Children in Poverty

In America's Children 2004 the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics reported that the poverty rate for children living with families rose from 15.8% in 2001 to 16.3% in 2002. This marked the first statistically significant increase since the child poverty rate peaked at 22% in 1993. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported in Household Food Security in the United States, 2002 that over thirteen million children under age eighteen (18.8% of all children) lived in food insecure households, and 567,000 of these children went hungry during the year.

Teens in the Workforce

By the time they were teenagers, many children begin to seek some type of work experience. Census figures show that of the twelve million minors age fifteen to seventeen in 2002, 25% were counted in the labor force.

TABLE 3.5

Employer assistance for child care, 2003
	Employer assistance for child care
Characteristics	Total	Employer provided funds	On-site and off-site child care	Child care resource and referral services
SOURCE: Adapted from "Table 4. Percentage of Workers with Access to Selected Benefits, by Selected Characteristics, Private Industry, National Compensation Survey, March 2003," in Employee Benefits in Private Industry, 2003, U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, September 2003, http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/sp/ebnr0008.pdf (accessed August 25, 2004)
All employees	18	3	5	10
Worker characteristics:
White-collar occupations	26	5	7	15
Blue-collar occupations	10	1	2	6
Service occupations	10	2	4	5
Full time	21	4	5	12
Part time	11	2	4	5
Union	25	3	7	15
Nonunion	18	3	5	10
Average wage less than $15 per hour	11	2	3	5
Average wage $15 per hour or higher	31	5	8	18
Establishment characteristics:
Goods-producing	16	3	2	11
Service-producing	19	3	6	10
1–99 workers	7	2	2	3
100 workers or more	32	5	8	19
Geographic areas:
Metropolitan areas	21	4	5	12
Nonmetropolitan areas	5	2	2	2
New England	22	4	8	12
Middle Atlantic	24	2	6	14
East North Central	21	3	6	11
West North Central	17	3	6	8
South Atlantic	15	4	3	9
East South Central	16	4	4	7
West South Central	14	2	3	8
Mountain	19	2	5	12
Pacific	17	4	3	10

While most of these working youths held part-time jobs, 7% worked full-time and 21% were unemployed. The high unemployment rate for teens who had been in the workforce, compared to a 5.8% unemployment rate for adults in 2002, reflected the need for additional training and skills as well as a shortage of part-time jobs. Teens living in inner city metropolitan areas experienced 24.7% unemployment while about 20% of their counterparts in suburban, small-town, and rural areas were unemployed. While African-American teens had the second-lowest workforce participation rate at 17%—the rate for Asian and Pacific Islander teens stood at 16.7%—they also experienced the highest rate of unemployment at 39.7%. (See Table 3.7.)

Contrary to the image of children in poor or single-parent families forced to go to work to help support the family, children in two-parent families were more likely to be in the workforce than children in single-parent families in 2002, according to the same Census report. Additionally, the

TABLE 3.6

Children's economic situation by family structure, March 20021
Characteristic	Total	Two parents	Mother only	Father only	Neither parent
— Represents zero or rounds to zero.
1All people under age 18, excluding group quarters, householders, subfamily reference people, and their spouses.
SOURCE: Jason Fields, "Table 7. Children's Economic Situation by Family Structure, March 2002," in Children's Living Arrangements and Characteristics, March 2002, Current Population Reports, P20-547, U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. Census Bureau, June 2003, http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p20-547.pdf (accessed July 19,2004)
	Number
Total	72,321	49,666	16,473	3,297	2,885
Family income
Under $15,000	9,516	1,993	5,706	559	1,257
$15,000 to $29,999	12,094	5,705	4,933	939	516
$30,000 to $49,999	15,140	10,360	3,328	963	489
$50,000 to $74,999	14,414	12,160	1,493	455	307
$75,000 and over	21,157	19,447	1,013	380	316
Poverty status
Below 100 percent of poverty	12,239	3,895	6,326	638	1,380
100 to 199 percent of poverty	15,686	9,147	4,949	935	655
200 percent of poverty and above	44,396	36,623	5,199	1,723	851
Household receives public assistance
Receives assistance	3,372	776	2,101	154	340
Does not receive assistance	68,949	48,889	14,372	3,143	2,545
Household receives food stamps
Receives food stamps	7,873	2,213	4,813	418	430
Does not receive food stamps	64,448	47,453	11,660	2,879	2,455
Household tenure
Owns/buying	48,542	38,362	6,547	1,808	1,825
Rents	22,512	10,366	9,689	1,444	1,012
No cash rent	1,266	938	237	44	48
	Percent
Total	100.0	68.7	22.8	4.6	4.0
Family income
Under $15,000	100.0	20.9	60.0	5.9	13.2
$15,000 to $29,999	100.0	47.2	40.8	7.8	4.3
$30,000 to $49,999	100.0	68.4	22.0	6.4	3.2
$50,000 to $74,999	100.0	84.4	10.4	3.2	2.1
$75,000 and over	100.0	91.9	4.8	1.8	1.5
Poverty status
Below 100 percent of poverty	100.0	31.8	51.7	5.2	11.3
100 to 199 percent of poverty	100.0	58.3	31.6	6.0	4.2
200 percent of poverty and above	100.0	82.5	11.7	3.9	1.9
Household receives public assistance
Receives assistance	100.0	23.0	62.3	4.6	10.1
Does not receive assistance	100.0	70.9	20.8	4.6	3.7
Household receives food stamps
Receives food stamps	100.0	28.1	61.1	5.3	5.5
Does not receive food stamps	100.0	73.6	18.1	4.5	3.8
Household tenure
Owns/buying	100.0	79.0	13.5	3.7	3.8
Rents	100.0	46.0	43.0	6.4	4.5
No cash rent	100.0	74.1	18.7	3.5	3.8

percentage of children in the workforce increased with the level of education of their parents and family income. Only 17% of children in families with incomes under $15,000 were counted in the workforce, compared to 28% of children whose families had incomes of $50,000 or more.