FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – September 30, 2009
Contact:
Sue Lin Chong / (410) 223-2836 / media@aecf.org
View PDF
New State and City-Level Child Poverty Rates and Rankings Now Available on the KIDS COUNT Data Center
Baltimore, MD – The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT Data Center http://www.kidscount.org/datacenter has been updated to include poverty data from the 2008 American Community Survey (ACS) that was released on September 29 by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The 2008 ACS data show no significant change in the child poverty rate overall since 2006, holding at 18 percent, but this rate is still higher than in 2000 (17 percent). There are currently 13 million children in households with incomes below the poverty threshold in the United States. The KIDS COUNT analysis of the ACS data shows that there continues to be a wide variation in child poverty rates across the states from a high of 30 percent in Mississippi to a low of 9 percent in New Hampshire.
The KIDS COUNT Data Center includes data from the ACS for large cities across the United States. Of the 50 largest cities, those cities with the highest 2008 child poverty rates are:
The 2008 poverty threshold for a family of two adults and two children was $21,834; in 2007, the threshold for families was $21,027. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the official poverty thresholds do not vary geographically, but are updated for inflation using the Consumer Price Index (CPI-U). These statistics are expected to worsen in 2009 as analysts capture the deepest months of the recession and rising unemployment.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation has been a leader in reinforcing the importance of child health insurance programs, childcare programs, housing assistance, the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit – supports that many low-income families rely on to stay afloat. The expected increase in poverty would be larger without the expansion of these supports as part of the federal economic recovery package.
The KIDS COUNT Data Center contains maps and graphs of the latest data on poverty, health insurance coverage, and more than 100 other indicators of child well-being. The Data Center now allows users to import widgets, maps, and graphs directly to their own websites as well as download static maps, graphs, and ranking tables for use in presentations and publications. Indicators based on the latest ACS and Current Poverty Estimates will be updated as data become available. Updates are compiled by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Population Reference Bureau.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation is a private charitable organization, whose primary mission is to foster public policies, human-service reforms, and community supports that more effectively meet the needs of today’s vulnerable children and families. For more information, visit www.aecf.org.
The Population Reference Bureau informs people around the world about population, health, and the environment, and empowers them to use that information to advance the well-being of current and future generations. For more information, visit www.prg.org.
###