In 2024, approximately 10.6 percent of the population was living below the national poverty line in the United States. This reflected a 0.5 percentage point decrease from the previous year. Most recently, poverty levels in the country peaked in 2010 at just over 15 percent. Poverty in the U.S. States The number of people living in poverty in the U.S. as well as poverty rates, vary greatly from state to state. With their large populations, California and Texas led that charts in terms of the size of their impoverished residents. On the other hand, Louisiana had the highest rates of poverty, standing at 20 percent in 2024. The state with the lowest poverty rate was New Hampshire at 5.9 percent. Vulnerable populations The poverty rate in the United States varies widely across different ethnic groups. American Indians and Alaska Natives are the ethnic group with the highest levels of poverty in 2024, with about 19 percent earning an income below the official threshold. In comparison, only about 7.5 percent of the White (non-Hispanic) and Asian populations were living below the poverty line. Children are one of the most poverty endangered population groups in the U.S. between 1990 and 2024. Child poverty peaked in 1993 with 22.7 percent of children living in poverty. Despite fluctuations, in 2024, poverty among minors reached its lowest level in decades, falling to 14.3 percent.

In 2024, about **** percent of children under the age of 18 were living below the poverty line in the United States. This reflected a decrease of *** percentage point from the previous year. Over the observed period, a historic decrease in child poverty was recorded in 2019 at **** percent.

Graph and download economic data for Estimate of People of All Ages in Poverty in United States (PEAAUS00000A647NCEN) from 1989 to 2023 about child, poverty, persons, and USA.

Note: Updates to this data product are discontinued. Over 1 in 4 rural children are living in families that are poor, according to the official poverty measure, up from 1 in 5 in 1999, but this change was uneven across the rural landscape. Counties with high vulnerability to child poverty, those with both low young adult education levels and high proportions of children in single-parent families, were generally the most hard-hit by the recession of the past decade and experienced substantial increases in their already high child poverty rates. Along with the recession, an increase in rural children in single-parent households, continuing from the 1990s, was a major contributor to the rise in child poverty after 2000. Three factors that shape the geography of high and increasing rural child poverty are explored below: economic conditions, young adult education levels, and family structure. This collection of maps complements the July 2015 Amber Waves feature, Understanding the Geography of Growth in Rural Child Poverty.

Out of all OECD countries, Cost Rica had the highest poverty rate as of 2022, at over 20 percent. The country with the second highest poverty rate was the United States, with 18 percent. On the other end of the scale, Czechia had the lowest poverty rate at 6.4 percent, followed by Denmark.

The significance of the OECD

The OECD, or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, was founded in 1948 and is made up of 38 member countries. It seeks to improve the economic and social well-being of countries and their populations. The OECD looks at issues that impact people’s everyday lives and proposes policies that can help to improve the quality of life.

Poverty in the United States

In 2022, there were nearly 38 million people living below the poverty line in the U.S.. About one fourth of the Native American population lived in poverty in 2022, the most out of any ethnicity. In addition, the rate was higher among young women than young men. It is clear that poverty in the United States is a complex, multi-faceted issue that affects millions of people and is even more complex to solve.

In 2024, 14.4 percent of children under the age of 18 in Germany were considered at risk of poverty. This means the child poverty risk rate increased by 0.4 percent compared to the previous year. The highest level within the observation period was recorded in 2021.

Office of Child Support Enforecment (OCSE) Story Behind the Numbers - Child Support Fact Sheet #3. This fact sheet focuses on data reported in a recent U.S. Census Bureau report, Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support: 2011. The data reported are estimated based on a biennial survey of custodial parents, the Child Support Supplement to the Current Population Survey, March/April 2012, co-sponsored by the Office of Child Support Enforcement. The proportion of custodial parents living below poverty line continues to increase in 2011. The report found that 4.2 million custodial parents lived in poverty in 2011, representing 29 percent of all custodial parents, about twice the poverty rate for the total population. These statistics reinforce the essential role that child support services can play in helping low-income families, especially during an economic downturn.

Pan London financial capability data to support Local Authorities Child Poverty Needs Assessments, updated in April 2011 with 2010 data.

This data is designed to help local authorities improve their understanding of the areas within their borough where low financial capability is most likely to exist. This could be useful to child poverty needs assessments, and subsequent work to develop and target support services for residents within their borough.

Supporting Documents

Technical information about the datasets is available in the readme.txt file.

A support note prepared by MAS and CPU is available to advise local authorities on using the data in Child Poverty Needs Assessments.

Profiles of the data categories are available in the Pen Portraits report and details of the underlying model used by Experian are available in Technical Model report.

Further Information

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For more information on the Money Advice Service (formerly the Consumer Financial Education Body): http://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk

For more information on Child Poverty Unit: http://www.education.gov.uk/childrenandyoungpeople/
families/childpoverty

For details of the Experian model:
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/thoresen_review_index.htm

In 2023, the around 11.1 percent of the population was living below the national poverty line in the United States. Poverty in the United StatesAs shown in the statistic above, the poverty rate among all people living in the United States has shifted within the last 15 years. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines poverty as follows: “Absolute poverty measures poverty in relation to the amount of money necessary to meet basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. The concept of absolute poverty is not concerned with broader quality of life issues or with the overall level of inequality in society.” The poverty rate in the United States varies widely across different ethnic groups. American Indians and Alaska Natives are the ethnic group with the most people living in poverty in 2022, with about 25 percent of the population earning an income below the poverty line. In comparison to that, only 8.6 percent of the White (non-Hispanic) population and the Asian population were living below the poverty line in 2022. Children are one of the most poverty endangered population groups in the U.S. between 1990 and 2022. Child poverty peaked in 1993 with 22.7 percent of children living in poverty in that year in the United States. Between 2000 and 2010, the child poverty rate in the United States was increasing every year; however,this rate was down to 15 percent in 2022. The number of people living in poverty in the U.S. varies from state to state. Compared to California, where about 4.44 million people were living in poverty in 2022, the state of Minnesota had about 429,000 people living in poverty.

Graph and download economic data for Estimated Percent of People Age 0-17 in Poverty for Howard County, MD (PPU18MD24027A156NCEN) from 1989 to 2023 about Howard County, MD; Baltimore; under 18 years; MD; child; poverty; percent; and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Estimate of People of All Ages in Poverty in Charlton County, GA (PEAAGA13049A647NCEN) from 1989 to 2023 about Charlton County, GA; GA; child; poverty; persons; and USA.

ABSTRACT The social and economic crisis that has hit the world since 2008, with effects strongly felt in the countries of Southern Europe, has had fierce and visible impacts in childhood with the increase of the effective rates, the risk of poverty and vulnerability, and the exposure to factors of social risk and consistent loss of rights. The analysis of these incidents has been worked on in a series of national and international reports from NGOs and academic studies. However, few studies have devoted attention to the way in which the interpretation of the representations of children about the crisis is made and the specific expressions that they assume in their daily lives. Children are able to observe the ways in which the crisis affects their own generational group as well as the adults closest to them. In the same way, they promote economic interpretations of phenomena, whether "naïve" or more complex. This article focuses on the representations of children about the social and economic crisis in Portugal. Graphical narratives produced by children from working classes, aged between 6 and 10 years old, are given focus. From these narratives, children construct visual forms from their imagination about their social condition. Thus, the child’s imagination is a way of accessing knowledge in the society they belong to and their own way of understanding complex realities.

Previous works have estimated the level of chronic poverty suffered by children using a count index, that is, the number of times a child was observed to be poor over a specified period of time. In addressing the question of which child suffers greater chronic poverty, this study looks beyond a count-based approach by paying attention to poverty measurement approaches that account for the timing, spacing and severity of poverty spells. This study is the first to document the poverty experiences of children in a developed nation using these intertemporal lifetime poverty measures. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics longitudinal dataset of the United States, I demonstrate that the count index does not account for all aspects of chronic poverty. Specifically, the evidence suggests that spending fewer periods in poverty is not always an indication of less chronic poverty suffered if the depth and distribution of poverty are ignored. I compare chronic poverty experiences between groups of children based on race, age of mother at birth, region, type of household, parental educational attainment and experiences of parental marital dissolution. Not surprisingly, non-whites suffer more chronic poverty than whites. This study shows that this difference is significantly increased when the timing and spacing of poverty spells are accounted for.

In 2024, just over 45 percent of American households had an annual income that was less than 75,000 U.S. dollars. On the other hand, some 16 percent had an annual income of 200,000 U.S. dollars or more. The median household income in the country reached almost 84,000 U.S. dollars in 2024. Income and wealth in the United States After the economic recession in 2009, income inequality in the U.S. is more prominent across many metropolitan areas. The Northeast region is regarded as one of the wealthiest in the country. Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maryland were among the states with the highest median household income in 2024. In terms of income by race and ethnicity, the average income of Asian households was highest, at over 120,000 U.S. dollars, while the median income among Black households was around half of that figure. What is the U.S. poverty threshold? The U.S. Census Bureau annually updates the poverty threshold based on the income of various household types. As of 2023, the threshold for a single-person household was 15,480 U.S. dollars. For a family of four, the poverty line increased to 31,200 U.S. dollars. There were an estimated 38.9 million people living in poverty across the United States in 2024, which reflects a poverty rate of 10.6 percent.

The Evaluation of Child Care Subsidy Strategies is a multi-site, multi-year effort to determine whether and how different child care subsidy policies and procedures and quality improvement efforts help low-income parents obtain and hold onto jobs and improve outcomes for children. Funding from the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) administered by the Child Care Bureau are divided into two purposes. The vast majority are aimed at assisting children of low-income working parents whose eligibility is determined by states within broad federal guidelines, while a much smaller portion (4 percent) work with state matching funds to improve the quality of child care for all children. For this study series, four experiments were conducted, two test alternative subsidy policies for low-income families and two test approaches to the use of set-aside funds for improving child care quality for all children. The four study sites and focus of evaluation include: (1) the effectiveness of three language and literacy curricula on teaching practices and children's language and literacy outcomes (Miami Dade County, Florida); (2) the impact of alternative eligibility and re-determination child care subsidy policies on parental employment outcomes (Illinois); (3) the impact of alternative child care co-payment structures on use of child care subsidies and employment outcomes (Washington) and (4) the effectiveness of training on Learning Games curriculum in changing care-giving practices in family child care homes and children's developmental outcomes (Massachusetts).

The Washington evaluation was designed to test the impact of changing parental copayment levels on various child care and economic outcomes (such as type of care used, earnings, employment, etc.). The copayment amount refers to the amount that families who are receiving child care subsidies contribute to the cost of child care, while the copayment schedule refers to the amount or the rate at which the copayment changes as income increases or decreases. In all states, the copayment amount is larger for families with higher incomes. In Washington in 2005, a three-person family receiving child care subsidies paid 3 percent of the cost of child care if their income was 33 percent of the federal poverty threshold, but 16 percent of the cost of care if their income was 200 percent of the threshold. In the Washington child care subsidy program, families were divided into three income tiers. Families in Tier 1 had incomes at or below 82 percent of the federal poverty threshold, families in Tier 2 had incomes between 83 and 137.5 percent of the threshold, and families in Tier 3 had incomes between 137.5 and 200 percent of the threshold. Under the standard copayment schedule used by Washington in 2005, child care subsidy recipients in Tier 1 paid $15 per month, while recipients in Tier 2 paid $50 per month. Families in Tier 3 faced a sliding copayment schedule, with the copayment increasing by 44 cents for each additional dollar of income beyond 137.5 percent of the poverty threshold. In the evaluation, study participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups: (1) a control group assigned to the standard copayment schedule, and (2) a program group assigned to an alternative copayment schedule, which had copayment amounts that were equal to or lower than standard copayment schedule amounts.

Abstract

The Young Lives survey is an innovative long-term project investigating the changing nature of childhood poverty in four developing countries. The purpose of the project is to improve understanding of the causes and consequences of childhood poverty and examine how policies affect children's well-being, in order to inform the development of future policy and to target child welfare interventions more effectively. The study is being conducted in Ethiopia, India (in Andhra Pradesh), Peru and Vietnam. These countries were selected because they reflect a range of cultural, geographical and social contexts and experience differing issues facing the developing world; high debt burden, emergence from conflict, and vulnerability to environmental conditions such as drought and flood.

The survey consists of three main elements: a child questionnaire, a household questionnaire and a community questionnaire. The household data gathered is similar to other cross-sectional datasets (such as the World Bank's Living Standards Measurement Study). It covers a range of topics such as household composition, livelihood and assets, household expenditure, child health and access to basic services, and education. This is supplemented with additional questions that cover caregiver perceptions, attitudes, and aspirations for their child and the family. Young Lives also collects detailed time-use data for all family members, information about the child's weight and height (and that of caregivers), and tests the children for school outcomes (language comprehension and mathematics). An important element of the survey asks the children about their daily activities, their experiences and attitudes to work and school, their likes and dislikes, how they feel they are treated by other people, and their hopes and aspirations for the future. The community questionnaire provides background information about the social, economic and environmental context of each community. It covers topics such as ethnicity, religion, economic activity and employment, infrastructure and services, political representation and community networks, crime and environmental changes. The Young Lives survey is carried out by teams of local researchers, supported by the Principal Investigator and Data Manager in each country.

Further information about the survey, including publications, can be downloaded from the Young Lives website.

Geographic coverage

Ethiopia - National Coverage India - Andhra Pradesh only Peru - National Coverage Vietnam - National Coverage

Analysis unit

Individuals Families/households Data are also gathered at Community and Mini-Community level.

Universe

Cross-national; Subnational Children aged 12 years old, children aged 19 years old, and the households of both sets, in Ethiopia, India (Andhra Pradesh), Peru and Vietnam. These children were originally interviewed in Rounds 1-3 of the study.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

Number of units: Ethiopia: 1,875 (12-year-olds), 908 (19-year-olds); India: 1,915 (12-year-olds), 952 (19-year-olds); Peru: 1,902 (12-year-olds), 635 (19-year-olds); Vietnam: 1,932 (12-year-olds), 887 (19-year-olds) More detailed information on survey design and sampling is available at http://www.younglives.org.uk/content/our-research-methods

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face interview; Self-completion

Research instrument

The Older Cohort Household Questionnaire (age 19) includes sections on: - Parental background; Household and child education - Livelihoods and asset framework - Household food and non-food consumption and expenditure - Social capital; Economic changes and recent life history - Socio-economic status

The Older Cohort Child Questionnaire (age 19) includes sections on: - Parents and Caregiver update; Mobility - Subjective well-being - Education - Employment, earnings, and time-use - Feelings and attitudes - Household decision-making - Marital and living arrangements - Fertility; Anthropometry - Health and nutrition

The Older Cohort Cognitive Tests (age 19) includes - Mathematics test - Reading comprehension test

The Older Cohort Self-Administered Questionnaire (age 19) includes sections on: - Relationship with parents - Smoking, Violence, Alcohol, Sexual behaviour (administered in Peru only)

The Younger Cohort Household Questionnaire (age 12) includes sections on:
- Parental background - Household and child education - Livelihoods and asset framework - Household food and non-food consumption and expenditure - Social capital - Economic changes and recent life history - Socio-economic status - Health - Anthropometry (for the study child and a sibling) - Caregiver perceptions and attitudes

The Younger Cohort Child Questionnaire (age 12) includes sections on: - Schooling - Time-us - Health - Social networks - Feelings and attitudes

The Younger Cohort Cognitive Tests (age 12) include: - Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (administered to the study child and a sibling) - Mathematics test - Reading comprehension test. In Ethiopia and Peru only: a computerised cognitive skill (Executive Functioning) test administered on touch-screen tablet computers for the study child and a younger sibling. In Ethiopia only an additional English and Amharic reading test.

The Community Questionnaire (administered in the main communities where Young Lives children live) includes sections on: - General characteristics of the locality - Social environment - Access to services; Economy - Local prices - Social protection - Educational services - Health services; Migration

The Mini-community questionnaire (administered in communities into which one or study children moved) includes sections on: - General characteristics of the locality - Social environment - Access to Services - Economy - Local prices

Slovakia SK: Multidimensional Poverty Headcount Ratio: Children: % of population aged 0-17 data was reported at 19.900 % in 2021. This records an increase from the previous number of 19.000 % for 2020. Slovakia SK: Multidimensional Poverty Headcount Ratio: Children: % of population aged 0-17 data is updated yearly, averaging 24.200 % from Dec 2010 (Median) to 2021, with 12 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 26.300 % in 2012 and a record low of 19.000 % in 2020. Slovakia SK: Multidimensional Poverty Headcount Ratio: Children: % of population aged 0-17 data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Slovakia – Table SK.World Bank.WDI: Social: Poverty and Inequality. ;Government statistical agencies. Data for EU countires are from the EUROSTAT;;

Understanding the evolving interactions between employment, social benefits, and families' well-being is key to designing better policies to both protect families and foster economic growth. Employment both overall and among those living in low-income families has been on a downward trajectory across the last three decades. One notable exception is that low-income women with children were increasingly likely to work between 1992 and 1999 in the aftermath of large changes to social safety net programs to provide more incentives and rewards for work. Since then, low-income women with children have been more likely to be employed than childless women. Over time, payments from social benefits programs have made up a larger share of income among low-income families with children and relatively higher earnings. Among low-income families without children, social benefits have not changed much over time. This paper has been published in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and is available at: Barrow, Lisa, Diane W. Schanzenbach, and Bea Rivera. 2024. “Work, Poverty, and Social Benefits over the Past Three Decades.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 711 (1): 100–120. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162241290105 .

This dataset contains replication files for "The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment" by Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, and Lawrence Katz. For more information, see https://opportunityinsights.org/paper/newmto/. A summary of the related publication follows. There are large differences in individuals’ economic, health, and educational outcomes across neighborhoods in the United States. Motivated by these disparities, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development designed the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment to determine whether providing low-income families assistance in moving to better neighborhoods could improve their economic and health outcomes. The MTO experiment was conducted between 1994 and 1998 in five large U.S. cities. Approximately 4,600 families living in high-poverty public housing projects were randomly assigned to one of three groups: an experimental voucher group that was offered a subsidized housing voucher that came with a requirement to move to a census tract with a poverty rate below 10%, a Section 8 voucher group that was offered a standard housing voucher with no additional contingencies, and a control group that was not offered a voucher (but retained access to public housing). Previous research on the MTO experiment has found that moving to lower-poverty areas greatly improved the mental and physical health of adults. However, prior work found no impacts of the MTO treatments on the earnings of adults and older youth, leading some to conclude that neighborhood environments are not an important component of economic success. In this study, we present a new analysis of the effect of the MTO experiment on children’s long-term outcomes. Our re-analysis is motivated by new research showing that a neighborhood’s effect on children’s outcomes may depend critically on the duration of exposure to that environment. In particular, Chetty and Hendren (2015) use quasi-experimental methods to show that every year spent in a better area during childhood increases a child’s earnings in adulthood, implying that the gains from moving to a better area are larger for children who are younger at the time of the move. In light of this new evidence on childhood exposure effects, we study the long-term impacts of MTO on children who were young when their families moved to better neighborhoods. Prior work has not been able to examine these issues because the younger children in the MTO experiment are only now old enough to be entering the adult labor market. For older children (those between ages 13-18), we find that moving to a lower-poverty neighborhood has a statistically insignificant or slightly negative effect. More generally, the gains from moving to lower-poverty areas decline steadily with the age of the child at the time of the move. We do not find any clear evidence of a “critical age” below which children must move to benefit from a better neighborhood. Rather, every extra year of childhood spent in a low-poverty environment appears to be beneficial, consistent with the findings of Chetty and Hendren (2015). The MTO treatments also had little or no impact on adults’ economic outcomes, consistent with previous results. Together, these studies show that childhood exposure plays a critical role in neighborhoods’ effects on economic outcomes. The experimental voucher increased the earnings of children who moved at young ages in all five experimental sites, for Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics, and for boys and girls. Perhaps most notably, we find robust evidence that the experimental voucher improved long-term outcomes for young boys, a subgroup where prior studies have found little evidence of gains. Our estimates imply that moving a child out of public housing to a low-poverty area when young (at age 8 on average) using a subsidized voucher like the MTO experimental voucher will increase the child’s total lifetime earnings by about $302,000. This is equivalent to a gain of $99,000 per child moved in present value at age 8, discounting future earnings at a 3% interest rate. The additional tax revenue generated from these earnings increases would itself offset the incremental cost of the subsidized voucher relative to providing public housing. We conclude that offering low-income families housing vouchers and assistance in moving to lowerpoverty neighborhoods has substantial benefits for the families themselves and for taxpayers. It appears important to target such housing vouchers to families with young children – perhaps even at birth – to maximize the benefits. Our results provide less support for policies that seek to improve the economic outcomes of adults through residential relocation. More broadly, our findings suggest that efforts to integrate disadvantaged families into mixed-income communities are likely to reduce the persistence of poverty across generations. The opinions expressed in this paper are...