Child Poverty and Access to Education: Adding Up the Hidden Costs on the U.S.-Hispanic Community
The Pew Hispanic Center recently published a report on the growing presence of child poverty in the United States. Since 2007, at the onset of the recession that hit this country under the George W. Bush administration, the number of children living in poverty has risen to nearly the highest in history. Moreover, this is the first time that the greatest racial or ethnic population of child poverty is not white. The child poverty rate of the Hispanic population has come to exceed that of both the black and the white populations. In the report, it was recorded that in 2010 over 15.5 million children lived in poverty in the U.S., where poverty is defined as a factor of the size of the family unit and the number of children less than eighteen years of age. For example, if a family of four, with two children under eighteen, has an annual income that is less than USD 22,113, then it would be considered to be “in poverty”. Of those 15.5 million children, 4.4 million (26.6 percent) are Black; 5.0 million (30.5 percent) are White; and a record-breaking 6.1 million children (37.3 percent) are Hispanic.
According to the United States 2010 Census Report, 16.3 percent of the total population in the U.S. and 23.2 percent of the U.S. population of people less than eighteen years old is Hispanic. The amount of Hispanic children living in poverty is 35.5 percent of the total U.S. population, of which 67.2 percent have parents who immigrated to the U.S. The other 32.8 percent have parents who were born in the U.S.
This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Associate Linnea LaMon.
To read the full analysis, click here.
Wednesday November 9th, 2011 | Research Memorandum 11.3
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