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| Summer Edition | |
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| Summer Edition | |
A new study finds that the percentage of poor young children with at least one employed parent has reached its highest level in two decades. Nearly two-thirds of poor young children (65 percent) were in working families in 1997. This represents a 20 percent increase since 1993.
These are just some of the key findings in the 1999 edition of "Young Children in Poverty: A Statistical Update" released last week on Capitol Hill by the Columbia University-based National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP).
"The growing share of poor young children in working families sends a strong message that more needs to be done to help low-income parents increase their earnings," said Dr. Lawrence Aber, director of NCCP. At the same time, only 36 percent of poor children under age six lived in families receiving public assistance in 1997, a 32 percent decline since 1993. "Our research suggests that thus far welfare reform has done better at moving families off the rolls than it has at moving families out of poverty. For welfare reform to truly succeed, it will need to include a greater emphasis on poverty reduction," Aber added.
The overall young child poverty rate fell to 22.0 percent in 1997 from 23.2 percent the previous year. Since 1993, the young child poverty rate has fallen by 16 percent after increasing by 52 percent from 1978 to 1993. (NCCP used the official federal poverty line--$16,400 for a family of four in 1997--to determine poverty.) The "Update"also identified additional important trends:
Young Children Whose Parents Lack a College Degree Are Increasingly Likely to Be Poor
The poverty rates for young children whose parents went to college but did not graduate and for young children whose parents completed high school but did not attend college have each increased by more than 75 percent over the past two decades.
"The fact that poverty rates have increased so sharply among children of non-college graduates ought to be particularly disturbing in a society where 70 percent of young children have parents without a college degree," said Neil Bennett, NCCP's director of demographic research and the principal author of the report.
"It has been long understood that children whose parents did not complete high school were at great risk of poverty. Now we need to recognize that a high school diploma or even some college education have become far less likely to protect a family against poverty," Bennett added.
NCCP also found that young children whose parents graduated from college were far less likely to be poor than other young children. Compared to the 3 percent poverty rate for the young children of college graduates, young children whose parents attended college but did not graduate were five times as likely to be poor, while those whose parents completed high school but did not attend college were nearly ten times as likely to be poor, and those whose parents did not finish high school were more than twenty times as likely to be poor.
The Face of Young Child Poverty Continues to Change
In addition to increased levels of employment and education among the parents of poor young children, the face of young child poverty continues to change in other meaningful ways:
� Young child poverty is becoming a more suburban problem: Young child poverty rates in suburban areas are still lower than in rural or urban areas but over the past two decades the young child poverty has grown fastest in suburban areas. The large majority of poor young children now live in suburban or rural areas and the number of poor young suburban children (1.9 million) is nearing that of poor young urban children (2.1 million).
� Racial differences have narrowed: The young child poverty rate among blacks and Hispanics is three times as high as for whites but since 1993 it has declined more rapidly among blacks than among whites or Hispanics.
� The Earned Income Tax Credit is an increasingly powerful tool against child poverty: The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has made substantial improvements in the economic well-being of young children in working families. Using an alternative measure of poverty, NCCP found that the young child poverty rate would have been 24 percent higher if the EITC had not existed.
"In an economy where non-poverty level employment is increasingly tied to a college degree, it is more necessary than ever to both improve access to higher education and support strategies like the EITC that raise the earnings of lower income workers," concluded Dr. Aber.
The "Update" was released at a June 17 forum co-sponsored by NCCP and the Child Welfare League of America. The forum, "Investing the Surplus: An Opportunity to Reduce Child Poverty," featured a number of distinguished panelists who discussed how a portion of the projected $2.7 trillion federal budget surplus over the next decade could be invested in public and private sector strategies to improve the economic prospects of low-income families with children.
For more information, visit http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/nccp/99uptext.html