Social Issues Affecting America's Children - Child Poverty

Poverty was associated with a number of serious problems for children, including inadequate health care and lower educational achievement. In 2003 children were 25.4% of the total population but 35.9% of people in poverty, according to U.S. Census figures. Since the early 1980s, the poverty rates for adults aged sixty-five and over nearly matched those for adults aged eighteen to sixty-four, demonstrating great improvement in the wellbeing of the elderly population. In 1974 children, for the first time, replaced the elderly as the poorest age group. As poverty rates for people aged sixty-five and over continued to decline, the poverty rate for children continued to climb to a 1993 peak of about 22%. The child poverty rate then began a steady decline but leveled off at about 16% in 1999. It began to rise again in 2002. The 2003 child poverty rate of 17.6% represented almost a full percentage point increase over the 16.7% rate in 2002.

In 2003 10% of all families lived in poverty. Families with no "breadwinner," or person who provided primary financial support through steady employment, were most likely to suffer poverty. Such families headed by a female householder had the highest poverty rate at 70.8%. Married-couple families with one or more workers had the lowest poverty rate at 5%. (See Figure 4.1.)

Lower Educational Achievement

"Low-income students' achievement 30 to 37 points below peers" headlined the front page of the August 7, 2004, edition of Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colorado. Across the nation, results of standardized reading and math tests reveal that children in poverty lag behind their classmates in educational achievement.

FIGURE 4.1

For purposes of comparison, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exam defined low-income students as those eligible for the federal free lunch and reduced-price lunch program. In the 2003–04 school year, a child in a family of three was eligible for reduced-price lunches if the family's annual income was $28,231 or less. A child in a family of three earning $19,838 or less per year was eligible for free lunches.

Average 2003 national NAEP math scores for all students were higher than in any previous assessment years. Low-income students on average, however, continued to score lower than other students. At the fourth grade level low-income students averaged twenty-two points lower. At the eighth grade level the gap widened with low-income students scoring an average of twenty-eight points lower than other students. (See Figure 4.2.)

Average NAEP reading scores for all students declined slightly from 2002 to 2003. As with math scores, reading scores revealed that low-income students continued to lag behind their classmates. At the fourth grade level low-income students averaged scores twenty-eight points lower than other students. The gap narrowed slightly at the eighth grade level to a twenty-four-point difference in average scores. (See Figure 4.3.)