States in the South and West have the highest rates of child poverty, according to a U.S. Census, after the overall U.S. rate increased from 12.4 to 13.7 percent in 2023.
Child poverty more than doubled from 5.2 percent in 2021 to 12.4 percent in 2022, according to census data, which was the first overall increase since 2010.
Explaining the data to Newsweek, director of the Social Policies for Health Equity Research (SPHERE) Center Professor Rita Hamad said that this coincided with the expansion of the Child Tax Credit in 2021, which then expired after it wasn’t renewed by Congress.
She said, “many parents are unable to make enough money and their children suffer the consequences.”
During the 2024 election campaign, Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris has proposed to expand the Child Tax Credit again, saying she would deliver $6,000 in support for babies in the first year of their life as well as regular cash support throughout their childhood.
President-elect Donald Trump has been relatively quiet on his plans to address child care costs, and subsequently child poverty, but Vice President-elect JD Vance has said he supports a $5,000 child tax credit.
The map shows that a large proportion of Southern and Western states have a higher percentage of child poverty at 14 percent or more, and includes states that have high levels of wealth like Texas, California, New York and Florida.
The data is based off the official poverty measure, one of two measurements used in the U.S. to determine level of poverty.
The official poverty measure is based on cash resources, and works by comparing an individual’s or family’s pre-tax cash income to a set of variables that change depending on the size of the family and the ages of family members.
Explaining the data, Hamad told Newsweek that one reason many states in the South have the highest levels of child poverty is because of “weaker economic and social supports.”
Many states in the Southern U.S. “have not implemented their own poverty policies like the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit,” she added.
Hamad also said that the reason was partly because of “historical and current structural racism, in which the Black residents had centuries of disenfranchisement with an inability to earn income or accumulate wealth, with the residual effects still evident today.”
Commenting on why states like California and New York have high rates of poverty, despite having stronger social safety net programs, Hamad said this was because of the high costs of living in those states, especially housing, which means that “the same amount of money doesn’t go as far as it does in other states.”
She also added that some of the states with high rates of poverty also have a very large immigrant population, and “many immigrants are not eligible for some of the largest U.S. safety net programs for low-income families.”
Speaking about the states with a lower child poverty percentage, which included Idaho, Wisconsin, South Dakota, and Iowa, Hamad said they “have at least some semblance of a social safety net, they have fewer Black and immigrant individuals who have been systematically marginalized, and their housing costs are not as sky-high.”
Many factors contribute towards higher levels of child poverty, such as children living in families with parents who have limited education, and therefore reduced opportunities to earn enough to support their families, and parents who have poor health and can’t work enough to make ends meet, according to Hamad.
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