In 2023, 17.9 percent of Black people living in the United States were living below the poverty line, compared to 7.7 percent of white people. That year, the total poverty rate in the U.S. across all races and ethnicities was 11.1 percent. Poverty in the United States Single people in the United States making less than 12,880 U.S. dollars a year and families of four making less than 26,500 U.S. dollars a year are considered to be below the poverty line. Women and children are more likely to suffer from poverty, due to women staying home more often than men to take care of children, and women suffering from the gender wage gap. Not only are women and children more likely to be affected, racial minorities are as well due to the discrimination they face. Poverty data Despite being one of the wealthiest nations in the world, the United States had the third highest poverty rate out of all OECD countries in 2019. However, the United States' poverty rate has been fluctuating since 1990, but has been decreasing since 2014. The average median household income in the U.S. has remained somewhat consistent since 1990, but has recently increased since 2014 until a slight decrease in 2020, potentially due to the pandemic. The state that had the highest number of people living below the poverty line in 2020 was California.

This map displays data from the Selected Economic Indicators (DP03) dataset from the 2010 American Community Survey 5-Yr Estimates, U.S. Census Bureau. Data is shown at the level of Census Tract, County, and Small Area (aggregation of Census Tracts developed by the New Mexico Department of Health). Measuring poverty is a topic of much current discussion. See the following links: A Different Way to Measure Poverty - http://www.sanders.senate.gov/imo/media/image/census.jpg"Few topics in American society have more myths and stereotypes surrounding them than poverty, misconceptions that distort both our politics and our domestic policy making."They include the notion that poverty affects a relatively small number of Americans, that the poor are impoverished for years at a time, that most of those in poverty live in inner cities, that too much welfare assistance is provided and that poverty is ultimately a result of not working hard enough. Although pervasive, each assumption is flat-out wrong." -Mark Rank, Professor of Social Welfare at Washington University: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/02/poverty-in-america-is-mainstream/

Graph and download economic data for Income Before Taxes: Public Assistance, Supplemental Security Income, SNAP by Race: White and All Other Races, Not Including Black or African American (CXUWELFARELB0903M) from 2003 to 2023 about supplements, assistance, social assistance, public, SNAP, food stamps, tax, white, food, income, and USA.

What are the relative contributions of stereotypes about the race and deservingness of welfare recipients to Americans’ opinions on welfare? A recent study employing a conjoint-experimental method finds that Americans’ stereotypes of welfare recipients as undeserving drive negative attitudes towards welfare, while stereotypes of welfare recipients as Black have little effect. However, this finding may be produced by the measure of welfare attitudes that includes questions implicating deservingness. We implement a conceptual replication of that study using different measures of welfare policy opinions that directly ask respondents about spending, both on welfare generally and on specific welfare programs. We show that when support for welfare is measured using the spending questions, stereotypes about race are significantly associated with opposition to welfare. These results have important implications for the debate on Americans’ opposition to welfare programs, as well as for the measurement of policy opinions in surveys.

In the 3 years to March 2021, white British families were the most likely to receive a type of state support.

Stata dataset and do file for all analysis tables and figures presented in manuscript, including appendices. (Appendix tables displaying descriptive statistics were created manually.)

As of 2019, approximately 18 million South Africans vulnerable to poverty or in need of state support received social grants, relief assistance or social relief paid by the government. The largest group that received social grants were Black and Coloured South Africans.

This special topic poll, conducted March 20-21, 1996, is part of a continuing series of monthly surveys that solicit public opinion on the presidency and on a range of other political and social issues. Respondents of this poll were asked to give their opinions about whether they thought it was possible to start out poor and become rich in this country, whether all Americans had equal opportunities, and whether there were more opportunities for Americans now than in the past. Respondents of this poll were asked to personally evaluate their lives and give their opinions on whether they had more opportunities than most Americans, and whether their lives at that time were the result of luck or fate. This poll also solicited respondents' opinions about how important certain factors were to getting ahead in life. These factors included hard work, knowing the right people, having educated parents, having strong religious faith, having a good education, and the number of years of education. Respondents' opinions were also collected on the importance of having strong religious faith. Other questions sought respondents' opinions on the difficulty of overcoming various situations in order to get ahead in life. These situations included overcoming having a parent that abused alcohol or drugs, living in a high-crime neighborhood, being a victim of physical abuse, growing up in a single parent household and growing up on welfare. Demographic variables include sex, race, age, marital status, employment status, whether respondents grew up in a single parent household, household income, education level, type of residential area (e.g., urban or rural), presence of children and teenagers in the household, political party affiliation, religious preference, and political philosophy.

This data collection is comprised of responses from the March and April installments of the 2006 Current Population Survey (CPS). Both the March and April surveys used two sets of questions, the basic CPS and a separate supplement for each month.The CPS, administered monthly, is a labor force survey providing current estimates of the economic status and activities of the population of the United States. Specifically, the CPS provides estimates of total employment (both farm and nonfarm), nonfarm self-employed persons, domestics, and unpaid helpers in nonfarm family enterprises, wage and salaried employees, and estimates of total unemployment.In addition to the basic CPS questions, respondents were asked questions from the March supplement, known as the Annual Social and Economic (ASEC) supplement. The ASEC provides supplemental data on work experience, income, noncash benefits, and migration. Comprehensive work experience information was given on the employment status, occupation, and industry of persons 15 years old and older. Additional data for persons 15 years old and older are available concerning weeks worked and hours per week worked, reason not working full time, total income and income components, and place of residence on March 1, 2005. The March supplement also contains data covering nine noncash income sources: food stamps, school lunch program, employer-provided group health insurance plan, employer-provided pension plan, personal health insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, CHAMPUS or military health care, and energy assistance. Questions covering training and assistance received under welfare reform programs, such as job readiness training, child care services, or job skill training were also asked in the March supplement.Respondents were asked supplemental questions in April about the economic situation of persons and families for the previous year. All household members 15 years of age and older that are a biological parent of children in the household from an absent parent were asked detailed questions about child support and alimony. Information regarding child support was collected to determine the size and distribution of the population with children affected by divorce or separation, or other relationship status change. Moreover, the data were collected to better understand the characteristics of persons requiring child support, and to help develop and maintain programs designed to assist in obtaining child support. These data highlight alimony and child support arrangements made at the time of separation or divorce, amount of payments actually received, and value and type of any property settlement.The April supplement data were matched to March supplement data for households that were in the sample in both March and April 2006. In March 2006, there were 4,635 household members eligible, of which 1,453 required imputation of child support data. When matching the March 2006 and April 2006 data sets, there were 190 eligible people on the March file that did not match to people on the April file. Child support data for these 190 people were imputed. The remaining 1,263 imputed cases were due to nonresponse to the child support questions. Demographic variables include age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, marital status, veteran status, educational attainment, occupation, and income. Data on employment and income refer to the preceding year, although other demographic data refer to the time at which the survey was administered.

The survey is from the American Mosaic Project, a multiyear, multimethod study of the bases of solidarity and diversity in American life. The survey contains items measuring the place of diversity in visions of American society and in respondents' own lives; social and cultural boundaries between groups and dimensions of inclusion and exclusion; racial and religious identity, belonging and discrimination; opinions about sources of advancement for Whites and African Americans; opinions about immigration and assimilation; diversity in respondents' close-tie network; political identity and demographic information. The survey also includes oversamples of African American and Hispanic respondents, allowing for comparisons across racial/ethnic categories. Demographic variables include race, age, gender, religion, level of education, United States citizenship status, partisan affiliation, and family income. See Appendix: Project Narrative for more information.

Poverty and low-income statistics by visible minority group, Indigenous group and immigration status, Canada and provinces.

In 2021, there were 168,063 white children in foster care in the United States. This is compared to 86,645 Black or African American children and 85,215 Hispanic children who were in foster care.

Foster care in the United States

Foster care is where minors are taken care of in different institutions, such as a group home or private home of a caregiver certified by the state (called a foster parent). The procedure for becoming a foster parent in the United States varies from state to state. It is up to the state to determine the process; however it is overseen by the Department of Child Protective Services. It is sometimes seen as a precursor to adoption, which is different from fostering a child. There are many barriers to fostering and adopting children, such as high costs and long wait times, which can discourage people from doing it.

Who are foster children?

The number of children in foster care in the United States has decreased slightly since 2011. When looked at by age, most of the children in foster care in 2020 were one year old, and slightly more male children were in foster care than female children. Most of the children in foster care were placed into non-relative foster family homes, and in most cases, the primary goal of foster care is to reunify children with their parents or primary caregivers.

Between 2018 and 2022, people in households in the ‘other’, Asian and black ethnic groups were the most likely to be in persistent low income, both before and after housing costs, out of all ethnic groups.

In 2022, the child abuse rate for children of Hispanic origin was at 7, indicating 7 out of every 1,000 Hispanic children in the United States suffered from some sort of abuse. This rate was highest among American Indian or Alaska Native children, with 14.3 children out of every 1,000 experiencing some form of abuse. Child abuse in the U.S. The child abuse rate in the United States is highest among American Indian or Alaska Native victims, followed by African-American victims. It is most common among children between two to five years of age. While child abuse cases are fairly evenly distributed between girls and boys, more boys than girls are victims of abuse resulting in death. The most common type of maltreatment is neglect, followed by physical abuse. Risk factors Child abuse is often reported by teachers, law enforcement officers, or social service providers. In the large majority of cases, the perpetrators of abuse were a parent of the victim. Risk factors, such as teen pregnancy, violent crime, and poverty that are associated with abuse and neglect have been found to be quite high in the United States in comparison to other countries.

This dataset includes the ethnicity of applicants for Insurance Affordability Programs (IAPs) who identified their ethnicity as Hispanic with the ethnic origin as Guatemalan, Mexican/Mexican American/Chicano, Other, Puerto Rican, Salvadoran, Mixed, or Cuban, Hispanic with ethnic origin not reported, not Hispanic, or ethnicity not reported by reporting period. The ethnicity data is from the California Healthcare Eligibility, Enrollment and Retention System (CalHEERS) and includes data from applications submitted directly to CalHEERS, to Covered California, and to County Human Services Agencies through the Statewide Automated Welfare System (SAWS) eHIT interface. This dataset is part of public reporting requirements set forth by the California Welfare and Institutions Code 14102.5.

In 2023, 15.4 percent of Black families were living below the poverty line in the United States. Poverty is the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing, and shelter.

The Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) was a large-scale, interdisciplinary study of how families, schools, and neighborhoods affect child and adolescent development. One component of the PHDCN was the Longitudinal Cohort Study, which was a series of coordinated longitudinal studies that followed over 6,000 randomly selected children, adolescents, and young adults, and their primary caregivers over time to examine the changing circumstances of their lives, as well as the personal characteristics, that might lead them toward or away from a variety of antisocial behaviors. Numerous measures were administered to respondents to gauge various aspects of human development, including individual differences, as well as family, peer, and school influences. The data files in this study contain basic demographic information including employment, income, race/ethnicity, welfare status, and material hardship.

The Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) was a large-scale, interdisciplinary study of how families, schools, and neighborhoods affect child and adolescent development. One component of the PHDCN was the Longitudinal Cohort Study, which was a series of coordinated longitudinal studies that followed over 6,000 randomly selected children, adolescents, and young adults, and their primary caregivers over time to examine the changing circumstances of their lives, as well as the personal characteristics, that might lead them toward or away from a variety of antisocial behaviors. Numerous measures were administered to respondents to gauge various aspects of human development, including individual differences, as well as family, peer, and school influences. The data files in this study contain basic demographic information including employment, income, race/ethnicity, welfare status, and material hardship.

This statistic shows the share families that have received income-related benefits in the United Kingdom (UK) in the period from 2015 to 2018, by ethnic group of household head. In this period, 29 percent of the families with head of the family being black/African black/Caribbean or British black received some form of income-related benefit.

This data collection contains information gathered in the Survey of Income and Education (SIE) conducted in April-July 1976 by the Census Bureau for the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). Although national estimates of the number of children in poverty were available each year from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS), those estimates were not statistically reliable on a state-by-state basis. In enacting the Educational Amendments of 1974, Congress mandated that HEW conduct a survey to obtain reliable state-by-state data on the numbers of school-age children in local areas with family incomes below the federal poverty level. This was the statistic that determined the amount of grant a local educational agency was entitled to under Title 1, Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. (Such funds were distributed by HEW's Office of Education.) The SIE was the survey created to fulfill that mandate. Its questions include those used in the Current Population Survey regarding current employment, past work experience, and income. Additional questions covering school enrollment, disability, health insurance, bilingualism, food stamp recipiency, assets, and housing costs enabled the study of the poverty concept and of program effectiveness in reaching target groups. Basic household information also was recorded, including tenure of unit (a determination of whether the occupants of the living quarters owned, rented, or occupied the unit without rent), type of unit, household language, and for each member of the household: age, sex, race, ethnicity, marital history, and education.