Fifty Percent of our Future
Politicians often say that children are so important because they represent our future.
Well, according to a Census Bureau report released today, almost half of that future is at risk because so many young children live in families
Fifty Percent of our Future
Politicians often say that children are so important because they represent our future.
Well, according to a Census Bureau report released today, almost half of that future is at risk because so many young children live in families with income insufficient to make ends meet. And one fourth of that future is spending its early years in outright poverty.
If there is any good news in the statistics on household income and poverty released today, it is that the poverty level has remained stable and did not increase as many expected. Yet young children under six remain the age group consistently at the lowest end of any income level—48 percent are under 200 percent of poverty, just under 25 percent are below the poverty line, and 12 percent—one in every eight—lives in a family whose income is below 50 percent of poverty. The poverty threshold for a family of four with two children is $22,811 per year, or $5,703 per family member.
Too often our political discourse brings children into the mix only in talking about the kind of world they will inherit, as if how we prepare them for that world is irrelevant to its ultimate shape. So we find ourselves asking the perennial question: What does it mean that one in four young children in America lives below the federal poverty line? And that another quarter live between that line of demarcation and 200% of poverty—the point below which economists find that families’ income can’t cover the necessities of life?
It means that these young children are spending the most vulnerable years developmentally in circumstances rife with situations that place them at risk. They may lack access to adequate nutrition, live in unstable housing, shiver in winter because there isn’t enough money to pay the heating bill. They are less likely to have access to rich early learning experiences. Their parents may be stressed to the limit with the challenges of holding a job, finding and affording child care, keeping stable housing, and organizing their live