Page 113 - Impact: Collected Essays on the Threat of Economic Inequality

Ending Child Poverty in NewYork
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Melanie Hartzog and Patti Banghart1
Current state of child poverty and inequality
Nationally, nearly 15 million children in the United States lived below the official poverty line— $23,834 for a family of four—in 2013 .2 Despite having the world’s largest economy, the United States has the second highest relative child poverty rate among 35 industrialized nations .3 Worse yet, income inequality in the U .S . is growing . The total income share going to the top 1 percent of earners rose from 10 .5 percent in 1964 to 22 .5 percent of overall income in 2012 .4
New York has the fifth highest child poverty rate in the nation, at 20 percent, according to the U .S . Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure (“SPM”), which takes into account the cost of living and the impact of public benefits .5 Not counting most government supports, more than one in five New York children—958,610—were poor in 2012 .6 Poverty also disproportionately impacts children of color in New York . Nearly one in three Black children (32 .8 percent) and more than one in three Hispanic children (35 percent) in New York were poor in 2012, compared to 13 .9 percent of White children .7 Moreover, the youngest, most vulnerable, children in New York were the poorest age group, with over one in four children under the age of six (346,565) living in poor families in 2012 .8
The cost of child poverty
Growing up poor has lifetime negative consequences on a child’s development . Child poverty creates gaps in cognitive skills starting from infancy; it decreases the likelihood of graduating from high school; poor children are more likely to be involved in the criminal justice system; child poverty increases the likelihood of becoming a poor adult; and poor children suffer from worse health outcomes .9
1 Melanie Hartzog is Executive Director and Patti Banghart is a Senior Early Childhood Education Policy Associate at Children’s Defense Fund-New York.
2 Thomas gaBe, congressional research service, poverTy in The uniTed sTaTes: 2013 2 (Jan. 2015), available at https:// www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33069.pdf.
3 Child Well-being in Rich Countries, unicef office of research-innocenTi (2013), hTTp://www.unicef-irc.org/reporT- card-11/.
4 esTelle sommeiller & mark price, epi, The increasingly unequal sTaTes of america: income inequaliTy By sTaTe, 1917 To 2012 5 (Jan. 26, 2015), available at http://www.epi.org/publication/income-inequality-by-state-1917-to-2012/.
5 annie e. casey foundaTion, measuring access To opporTuniTy in The uniTed sTaTes 3 (2015), available at http://www.aecf. org/m/resourcedoc/aecf-MeasuringAccesstoOpportunityKC2-2015.pdf.
6 children’s defense fund, children in The sTaTes: new york 1 (May 6, 2014), available at http://www.childrensdefense. org/library/data/state-data-repository/cits/2014/2014-new-york-children-in-the-states.pdf.
7 children’s defense fund, The sTaTe of america’s children 4 (2014), available at http://www.childrensdefense.org/ library/state-of-americas-children/2014-soac.pdf.
8 Id.
9 greg J. duncan & Jeanne Brooks-gunn, consequences of growing up poor 12 (1999); Greg J. Duncan & Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, The Effects of Poverty on Children, 7 The fuTure of children 2 (Summer/Fall 1997), https://www. princeton.edu/futureofchildren/publications/docs/07_02_03.pdf; Greg J. Duncan et al. , How Much Does Childhood Poverty Affect The Life Chances Of Children?, 63 am. soc. rev. 406-23 (1998), available at http://www.jstor.org/ stable/2657556?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents.
Lessons from New York City