NEWS

Child poverty came roaring back in 2022, according to U.S. government figures released today, more than doubling to over 12% and erasing the last bits of progress achieved during the nation’s pandemic emergency.

In 2022, nearly 9 million children — or 12.4% of all U.S. children — lived in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), a 7.2 percentage point increase over the previous year. The SPM includes government assistance such as tax credits, income support and nutrition assistance. In 2021, such supports drove child poverty in the U.S. to its lowest level in history. Today’s Census figures estimate that refundable tax credits lifted 3.5 million children out of poverty in 2021.

This proposal seeks to change the rate of inflation used to calculate the poverty threshold for the Official Poverty Measure each year. The Official Poverty Measure is already unrealistically low and families living at the poverty line cannot meet their basic needs. A switch from the current measure of inflation to one that measures inflation at a lower level would mean that over time the poverty line, already inadequate, would become even less realistic and our official estimate of the number of children and families living in poverty would become even less accurate.

When the economy falters, job one is fixing it and other priorities must wait. Once it is back on track however, there is no excuse for failing to address urgent needs too long deferred. Especially when it is our children suffering. Though our economy remains far from perfect, opportunity beckons. A report from the National Academy of Sciences earlier this year found we have the opportunity to cut U.S. child poverty in half in the next decade. This moment may not come again in our lifetime.

Today, one in five U.S. children grows up in poverty. That’s 14 million kids who simply do not get a fair chance at a bright future because they lack access to the quality education and other resources which others may take for granted.

Child poverty is not inevitable – we know that investing in high-quality early childhood education is one of the most effective ways to break the pervasive cycle of poverty and ensure equal opportunity for all families in America.

Now, a two-year study by the nonpartisan National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS) finds the annual cost of child poverty is $800 billion to $1.1 trillion, or 4 to 5.4 percent of the US gross domestic product. Equally important, the authors demonstrate that income poverty causes great harm to children and adults, particularly when it “occurs in early childhood or persists throughout a large portion of childhood.” That harm includes changes in brain structure, lower educational attainment, reduced adult earnings, and greater need for public assistance.

Yesterday the U.S. Census Bureau reported that despite gains in our economy and low unemployment, child poverty in the U.S. remains stubbornly high at 17.5 percent, and children continue to disproportionately experience poverty in the U.S.    

A new resource released today from the U.S. Child Poverty Action Group provides a robust, cross-sector analysis on the policies needed to significantly reduce child poverty in the U.S.

The U.S. Child Poverty Action Group, a coalition of child-focused organizations dedicated to reducing child poverty in the U.S., is very concerned by recent proposals from Congress and the Administration to weaken public assistance programs by imposing cuts, employment documentation requirements, irrational time limits, and other unnecessary government bureaucratic barriers.

New data published today from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that 18 percent of American children—13.3 million—lived below the poverty line in 2016, a slight decrease from 19.7 percent in the previous year.

President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have pledged to overhaul the nation's complex tax code. To slash taxes, they say they'll curb a web of expensive deductions and credits to allow more revenue to flow to the government.

Recently, I asked my 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old students what they thought all children need in order to grow up healthy and strong. They responded readily: Lots and lot of water. Fruits and vegetables. Love. Schools. Homes. Parents. A life. Stuff to play with. A 5-year-old went a step further: “Legos.” A 6-year-old snapped back. “Legos? You don’t need them, but you would want them.”

If a topic like comprehensive tax reform could ever be the rage in Washington, now would be the moment. President Trump has pledged to deliver “big league” changes to taxes, particularly cutting corporate taxes. Standing room-only sessions on Capitol Hill have debated the previously obscure proposal for a ‘border-adjusted’ tax to boost American jobs.

A powerful coalition today released a paper that offers lawmakers a blueprint for using tax reform to improve the standard of living for children in the United States.

A coalition of child advocates is calling on the incoming Trump Administration to create a national Child Poverty Target, setting the goal of cutting the U.S. child poverty rate by half within a decade.

Here’s the kind of person whom America’s presidential candidates just don’t talk about: a sweet, grinning, endangered 13-year-old boy named Emanuel Laster.

The verdict is out: 20 years later, the only federal cash assistance program for low-income families desperately needs an overhaul.