Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
7 Figures: National Academies report on child poverty
7 Figures: National Academies report on child poverty
Jan 18, 2026 1:07 AM

In a massive new599-page study, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Board on Children, Youth, and Families produced a report on the costs of child poverty in the United States and the effectiveness of current efforts aimed at reducing poverty.

Here are seven figures from the report you should know:

1. In 2015, the latest year for which estimates were available, more than 9.6 million U.S. children (13.0 per cent) lived in families with annual es below a poverty line defined by the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). About 2.1 million children (2.9 per cent) lived in “deep poverty,” defined as having family resources below half of the poverty-based line.

2. Child poverty rates were much higher for Black children (18 percent) and Hispanic children (22 percent) than for non-Hispanic White children (8 percent); for children in single-parent families (22 percent) than for those in two-parent families (9 percent); for children in immigrant families (21 percent) than for those in non-immigrant families (10 percent); and for children in families with no workers (62 percent) than for those in families with part-time workers (28 percent) or with full-time workers (7 percent).

3. The two refundable tax credits—the EITC and the refundable portion of the Child Tax Credit—are the most successful at alleviating poverty. The report estimates that the elimination of these tax credits would raise SPM child poverty to 18.9 percent, an increase of 5.9 percentage points or 4.4 million children. In the absence of SNAP benefits, the child poverty rate would have increased to 18.2 percent.

4. During the 1967–2016 period, child poverty rates varied with both business cycles and changes in social benefit programs. Government tax and transfer programs reduced child poverty modestly between 1967 and 1993, but they became increasingly important after 1993 because of increases in government benefits (mainly the Earned e Tax Credit) targeted at the poor and near-poor. Between 1993 and 2016, SPM poverty fell by 12.3 percentage points, dropping from 27.9 to 15.6 percent.

5. The decline in two-parent family structure is the single biggest factor associated with the increase in child (official) poverty between the mid-1970s and the early 1990s. However, child poverty has fallen since the early 1990s, despite continuing increases in single parenthood. This more recent decline in child poverty is most strongly associated with increases in maternal employment.

6. Men who grew up in poverty are twice as likely as adults to have been arrested, and among women early childhood poverty was associated with a six-fold increase in the likelihood of bearing a child out of wedlock prior to age 21.

7. Programs producing the largest reductions in child poverty are estimated to cost the most. Almost all of mittee-developed program options that lead to substantial poverty reduction were estimated to cost at least $20 billion annually.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
How are free-market think tanks doing on social media?
Alejandro Chafuen, Acton’s Managing Director, International, posted his annual analysis of think tanks’ use of social media last week inForbes. He wrote: Due to the coronavirus pandemic think tanks around the world are working under quarantine and have cancelled all events in ing months. They will have to rely more on social media to get their messages across. How successful are free-market think tanks today in trying to attract traffic to their websites, as well as views and followers on...
Service is love for our God and our clients
For the Italian Nuova Bussola Quotidiana media outlet, I am publishing a series of short reflections on economics, virtue and spirituality during Lent entitled Lentenomics(go here for the first reflection on “sacrifice”). In the second of these six essays I turned my attention to the virtue of “service.” In summary, I write that “service has a supremely essential role within the economy, and not just in the so-called ‘service industries.’ Markets simply cannot function without services. They are the fundamental...
April Fools’ Day: Italians are not joking around anymore as civil unrest builds
Culturally the first of April – April Fools’ Day – is the same in Italy as in America. It’s a day of practical jokes and laughs. Only here it’s called April Fish Day, because it is related to the ancient end of the Pisces or Fish sign in the zodiac. It also the day of jokes which Italians inherited from the ancient Roman feast of Hilaria (hilarious in English) celebrated around the spring equinox. During the Hilaria celebrations Romans would...
Creativity will kill COVID-19
It is in the most desperate of times that we must not forget our principles. Globally, we are facing desperate times. In the United States, unemployment rolls doubled in just one week, climbing to 6.6 million unemployment claims for the week ending March 28, 2020. As more Americans are asked to stay at home, many have e unemployed. Additionally, the potential death toll scares us, and we beg for scientists to expedite new tests, anti-viral drugs, and vaccines. These are...
This machine could replace 8 million masks. The FDA slowed it down.
The United States is a land of plenty, but federal officials say it does not have all the medical equipment it needs to fight the coronavirus. With the government estimating the U.S. needs anywhere from 270 million to 3.5 billion additional face masks, one would think its top priority would be facilitating the creation of new masks and finding ways to reuse its existing supply—but developments this weekend indicate otherwise. The federal government initially mended that healthcare providers wear N95...
Jon Basil Utley, RIP
I had the privilege of being close to Jon Basil Utley (1934-2020) for the last 25 years of his life. Even though we disagreed on a few topics, we always did it with a smile. It was more like a game between friendly tennis partners than a struggle to score political or intellectual points against each other. Several years ago I read Odyssey of a Liberal, the autobiography of his mother, Freda Utley. I mend the book to all who...
FAQ: Did Viktor Orbán just become a dictator?
On Monday, Hungary’s parliament passed a law aimed bating the coronavirus, which gives Prime Minister Viktor Orbán the power to rule by decree. Critics warn this law gives the prime minister dictatorial powers and could allow him to suppress opposition media outlets. Here are the facts you need to know. Did the government already have these powers? This bill significantly strengthens the powers the prime minister has. The Fundamental Law of Hungary already allows the government to declare a state...
No one knows what a return to ‘normalcy’ after COVID-19 will look like
At some point, not today but perhaps in the next few weeks, we will be having more conversations about getting people back to work and restoring the $21 trillion U.S. economy. Some signs indicate the coronavirus pandemic may turn soon in the United States. Even if the entire nation makes an all-out effort to restrict contact, coronavirus deaths will peak in the next two weeks, with patients overwhelming hospitals in most states, according to a University of Washington study. The...
Government bailouts and debt: further thoughts on the coronavirus crisis
Rev. Robert Sirico, president and co-founder of the Acton Institute, reflects on the unprecedented levels of debt that our society is taking on in the name of fighting the coronavirus. How tolerant are we ing to the government’s interventions? What role does subsidiarity play in solving our problems? Be sure to check out the other videos in this series, linked below. Thoughts from Rev. Robert Sirico during the coronavirus pandemic How freer markets can help during the coronavirus crisis with...
Acton Line podcast: How to talk about rights in our polarized age
Today, our most contentious controversies are about morality. We disagree about questions of efficiency and democracy, but across political aisles, we also disagree about what’s right to do and who we’re ing as a people. How can we have productive debates with people whose worldviews are very different from ours? Adam MacLeod, professor of law at Faulkner University, addresses this question in his new book titled “The Age of Selfies: Reasoning About Rights When the Stakes Are Personal.” In this...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved