More than 16.4 million children in America are poor, but they live in working families. A disproportionate number are Black and Latino. Poor children lag behind their peers in many ways beyond income: They are less healthy, trail in emotional and intellectual development, and are less likely to graduate from high school. Poor children also are likely to become the poor parents of the future. Every year that we keep children in poverty costs our nation half a trillion dollars in lost productivity, poorer health and increased crime.

Our vision is to end child poverty. We must invest in high quality education for every child, livable wages for families, income safety nets like job training and job creation, the Earned Income and Child Tax Credits, and work supports like child care and health coverage. We also work with partners to educate families about benefits for which they are eligible.

 Children of Hard Times

New data released by the U.S. Census Bureau on September 13th shows another devastating increase in the number of children living in poverty. The new numbers are grim and shameful. There are 16.4 million children—nearly one million more—living in poverty. Marian Wright Edelman with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Julia Cass chronicles the new faces of poverty through the “Children of Hard Times”. Traveling across the heartland of America, Ms. Cass reports the desperate toll poverty takes on children and their parents. The stories offer fresh insight into the daily struggle to provide food and shelter, health care and educational support, and find stable employment paying a liveable wage in the United States in 2011. Read their stories and CDF’s response to the sharp increase in child poverty.

Children of Hard Times: New Faces of Child Poverty

The Hanebuth Family Middletown, Ohio

The Thomas/Dinwiddie Family Detroit, Michigan	The Barrett Family New Orleans, Louisiana	The Allen/Latimore Family Middletown, Ohio

The Rogers/Cohen Family Cincinnati, Ohio	The Nailor Family Evart, Michigan	The Bundy Family Dowagiac, Michigan
The Harper Family Columbus, Ohio	The Potter Family Marion, Ohio	The McKee Family Dowagiac, Michigan

Ms. Cass also contributed to writing CDF’s Cradle to Prison Pipeline® report. More recently she wrote Held Captive: Child Poverty in America for CDF.

Vanishing American Dream for Young People and Young Families with Children

These briefs by Northeastern University economics professor Andy Sum highlight the toll unemployment and poverty have taken on young people and young families with children in the past decade, and the long-term effects this economic crisis will have on America’s future workforce and its economic prosperity. Young families with children have been hit the hardest in what has been called “The Lost Decade” with close to two out of three families living in poverty. Deteriorating earnings for young adults since 1979 have affected their ability to form independent households, reduced marriage rates and increased the share of college graduates living at home. Nearly two million jobs have disappeared from the economy and rampant unemployment, hidden unemployment and mal-employment have affected the earnings of all young workers. This emerging national crisis has long-term social and economic consequences for the nation. Click here to read these briefs.

Data on Child Poverty

The State of America's Children® 2011, a compilation of the most recent and reliable national and state-by-state data on key child indicators, including child poverty. The Child Poverty section of the report includes state data on the number and percentage of children living in poverty and extreme poverty and the child poverty breakdown by race/ethnicity and geography. This section of the report also includes poverty trends among children over the past 50 years and poverty rates of children in young families by the educational attainment of the family householder. A total of 15.5 million children—or one in every five children in America—lived in poverty in 2009, an increase of nearly four million children since 2000 and the largest single year increase since the data was first collected.

Child Poverty in America 2010 Fact sheet

This fact sheet highlights the new poverty data released by the U.S. Census Bureau for 2010. The number of children in poverty increased by 950,000 between 2009 and 2010, rising from 15.5 million to 16.4 million—or over one in five children in America. Overwhelmingly, children have suffered more than any other age group during this recession and slow recovery. Children of color continue to suffer disproportionately from poverty. Download the fact sheet.

Carsey Institute Report on Child Poverty

Researchers at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey Institute have released a report which details the demographic breakdowns of child poverty in America. The report finds that young children of color in rural areas or single parent families are the most vulnerable to the effects of poverty. Read the full report here.

FRAC Survey Shows Households With Children Struggle to Afford Food

The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) recently released findings from a survey which paint a clear portrait of the struggle faced by many families to afford food for their children. The survey found that in 2009, nearly one in four households with children struggled to afford the food they needed.  Nationally, nearly one in five Americans (18.5 percent) has lacked the money to buy the food they needed at some point in the last year.  To read the full report, click here.

Access to nutritious food is a matter of social justice. As CDF President Marian Wright Edelman noted in her recent Child Watch® column Urban Food Deserts Threaten Children’s Health, failing to ensure our children receive better nutrition will cost our nation dearly.   Ensuring children and adults access to nutritious food is one obvious step we must take as legislators struggle to reform our nation's health care system and contain its skyrocketing costs.

For more research on food insecurity in the United States, see the 2008 USDA report Household Food Security in the United States, or The Public Health Effects of Food Deserts Workshop Summary from the National Academy of Sciences.

Billions Lost to Predatory Commercial Tax Preparers

A new CDF report, "Avoiding the Pitfalls of Refund Anticipation Loans," finds that in tax year 2006, low-income families lost $3.1 billion of their Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) benefits to high-interest, short-term loans, tax preparation fees and other financial products issued by commercial tax preparers. The EITC, is a refundable federal tax credit for low- and modest-income workers, is one of the most effective tools for lifting families out of poverty. The report also provides city, county and state breakdowns of dollars lost to predatory tax preparers and provides ways individuals, communities and policy makers can take action to lift children out of poverty by helping their working families keep more of the benefits they’ve earned.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: Child Poverty Resources Available in Your State and Community

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama helps alleviate the stress on families and communities by investing in improvements for a range of needed services and supports, including those services that will help children in poverty.  Learn what is available in your state and community and how to use these funds to invest in child poverty by visiting the Child Support Enforcement, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF),and Unemployment Assistance and Workforce Development sections of our guide, The New Economic Recovery Law: Resources to Help Children and the Economy.