Jun 17, 2019
The child poverty rate today is the same as in 1990
In 2017, the child poverty rate was 18%. Go back nearly three decades to 1990: also 18%.
Children play as a woman, a member of the Navajo Nation, fills bottles of water at a public tap on June 05, 2019 in Thoreau, New Mexico.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
More than 13 million children live below the poverty line in America, according to an annual report out today from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. That’s 18% of children in the U.S., the same percentage as almost 30 years ago. The poverty rate for African-American and American Indian kids remains substantially higher: 33%. Childhood poverty can have long-lasting effects.