Poverty status of children by family structure | Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (2024)

FAQs

Poverty status of children by family structure | Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention? ›

In 2021, 9.5% of children living with two parents lived below the poverty level, compared to 31.7% of children living with a single parent. Children living with only their mothers in 2021 were more than twice as likely to live in poverty than those living with only their fathers (35.0% vs. 17.4%).

The family structure in and of itself is an important factor in reducing poverty: children raised in single-parent families are nearly five times as likely to be poor as those in married-couple families.

Poverty is measured in the United States by comparing a person's or family's income to a set poverty threshold or minimum amount of income needed to cover basic needs. People whose income falls under their threshold are considered poor.

Divorced Families

Divorcing or separating mothers are 2.83 times more likely to be in poverty than those who remain married. Roughly 28 percent of mothers with children experience poverty within a year after their divorce.

Family structure experiences matter for child development because they influence children's caregiving environments, including the levels of parenting and economic resources available to or invested in them and the nature of their relationships with their caregivers.

Poverty can mean children going without basics, and it can also mean missing out on everyday fun and activities that other kids take for granted. Poverty harms children's health, social and emotional wellbeing, and education. It harms their childhoods and their futures.

For an individual, the poverty threshold is $14,891. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services uses the Census Bureau threshold to determine who is eligible for certain government assistance programs, like SNAP (food stamps).

Children are considered to be living in poverty if they're deprived in critical areas such as nutrition, education, health and housing.

The Oxford dictionary gives the definition of poverty as “the state of being extremely poor” and the definition for poor as “lacking sufficient money to live at a standard considered comfortable or normal in a society”.

What is the biggest problem in a family living in poverty? ›

Living in poverty often means having limited access to health care, food and housing security, greater risk of school drop-out for children, homeless, unemployment due to lack of education or child care and, unfortunately, not reaching one's full potential.

Relative to the total number of children of a given race and ethnicity, the risk of residing in a point-in-time poor county is highest among Black children (70.8%), followed by American Indian and Alaskan Native (70.6%), Hispanic (65.0%), and non-Hispanic White children (46%).

Factors Associated with Poverty

Census data has shown that certain characteristics tend to increase the likelihood of experiencing poverty. Among the most important are education, marital status, race, gender, and age.

Prominent families' poverty status also relies on how composed they are: extra kids generally raise the risk of poorness, clarified by lower per capita resources and greater dependence, and other adults generally lower the risk. Take, for instance, a family with ten family members, and only one person has a job.

These disparities are what contribute to economic insecurity and poverty. Given these structural factors and their disproportionate impact on people of color in the US, it is clear that laziness and immorality are not the root causes of poverty. Yet, these flawed ideas still form the basis of the American safety net.

Children and families living in poverty often attend under-resourced, overcrowded schools that lack educational opportunities, books, supplies, and appropriate technology due to local funding policies.

In turn, family structure affects the economy. For example, the rate of divorce affects the demand for housing. The rate of divorce also affects savings and labour force participation. It can also affect the completed fertility rate, the migration rate, health, and mortality, thereby affecting the economy indirectly.