source: https://blogs.msn.com/empoweringkids/how-many-children-live-in-poverty-in-your-state?ocid=spartandhp
Throughout the United States, 18.4% of Americans under age
18 — a total of 13.4 million children — live in poverty, one of the highest
child poverty rates of any developed nation. Children born into poverty are
likely to continue to live in impoverished circumstances as adults. In a 2017
study from the US Partnership on Mobility from Poverty that tracked 18,000
individuals since 1968, researchers found that only 16% of children who spent a
majority of their childhoods in poverty were living above the poverty line
between the ages of 25 and 30. Poverty in America also disproportionately
affects minority families and exacerbates existing socioeconomic inequalities
along racial lines.
States with higher childhood poverty rates tend to perform
poorly in other socioeconomic factors, such as lower educational attainment
rate, higher unemployment, and higher rates of food insecurity, all of which
can ultimately lead to worse health outcomes and lower life expectancy. These
are places where poverty is causing bad diets.
According to a 2019 report from the National Academies of
Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, the lower productivity, higher crime rates,
and worse health outcomes that result from child poverty cost the United States
between $800 billion and $1.1 trillion a year.
