About equal numbers of Black and White children are living in poverty
The number of impoverished children also declined across racial and ethnic groups. In particular, the numbers of poor Black and White children reached new lows in 2019 (each around 3 million). While there are about as many White children as Black children living in poverty, it’s worth noting that there are more than three times as many White children as Black children in the U.S.
The greatest decline was in the number of Hispanic children living in poverty. In 2019, 3.9 million Hispanic children were living in poverty, down from 6.1 million impoverished Hispanic children nearly a decade earlier. But there are still more Hispanic children in poverty than any other racial or ethnic group, which has been the case since at least 2007. This is probably because Hispanics are the largest and the youngest racial or ethnic minority population in the U.S. and because the Hispanic child poverty rate is relatively high (21%).
number of children living in poverty by race and ethnicity lin millions  | 8  | recessions  | 2  | 1980  | 1985  | 1990  | 1995  | 2000  | 2005  | 2010  | 2015  | asian  | white  | hispanic  | black 