Fifty Facts About Poverty



 
    In 1991, the United States had approximately 35.7 million
     people living below the poverty level.  This represents 14.2
     percent of the Nation's population (U.S. Bureau of the
     Census, 1992).


 
    One in five children (14.3 million) lived in poverty in
     1991, the highest number since 1965.  The majority of poor
     children are white; most have a parent that works; and most
     live outside large cities, in rural and suburban America
     (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992).   


 
    Children in poverty have poor parents who are less able than
     other parents to fulfill their responsibilities because they
     have few economic, personal, and social resources.  The
     problems of children in poverty will probably not be met
     without addressing the needs of poor families.


 
    The United States, compared to other countries, ranks 20th
     in infant mortality (UNICEF, State of World's Children,
     1992, U.S. Data from NCHS, 1991).


 
    The United States, compared to other countries, ranks 17th
     in the world in percentage of  
     1-year-olds fully vaccinated against polio (UNICEF State of
     the World's Children Report 1993, 1992, U.S. Immunization
     Survey, 1985).


 
    The United States, compared to other countries, ranks 14th
     in life expectancy and 4th in literacy (Howell, B., 1990).


 
    The United States has one of the highest degrees of
     inequality in distribution of income (Smeeding, T.M.,
     O'Higgins, M., & Rainwater, L., 1990).


 
    The United States has the highest proportion of single-
     parent families; nearly one child in four now lives with one
     parent (Hobbs, F., & Lippman, L., 1990).  


 
    The United States has higher child poverty than seven other
     major industrialized western countries (UNICEF, State of the
     World's Children Report 1993, 1992).  The U.S. child poverty
     rate is dramatically higher than those of Canada, Germany,
     Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.


 
    In 1989, 39,655 infants died in the United States before
     their first birthday.  In 1989, the infant mortality rate
     was 9.8 deaths per 1,000 live births (National Center for
     Health Statistics, 1991).  Each year, an estimated 10,000
     American children die from poverty's effects (The State of
     American Children, 1992).


 
    America's wealth as  measured by the gross national product
     (GNP) reached  an all-time high in 1990.  Between 1979 and
     1989, GNP grew by more than one-fourth, but child poverty
     increased by 21 percent (Johnson, C.M., Miranda, L.,
     Sherman, A., & Weill, J.D., 1991).


 
    The United States spent more than 11 percent of its gross
     national product on health in 1988 (Health Care Financing
     Administration, Office of National Cost Estimates, 1990).  
     Even so, many American children suffer from health problems,
     and these children are disproportionately poor or near-poor.


 
    About half of the Nation's poor in 1991 were children under
     18 years of age (40.2).  Children are almost twice as likely
     to be poor than any other group of Americans, including the
     elderly (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992).


 
    The population aged 85 and over, has quintupled since 1950
     and will double again by 2010.  By 2030, more than 1 in 5
     Americans will be aged 65 and older.  Women are "on the
     front lines" of the aging trend not only because they make
     up a majority of the elderly, but because they are the main
     providers of care paid  and unpaid to  growing numbers of
     frail and disabled very-elderly persons.  (Allen, J., &
     Pifer, A., ed., 1993).


 
    In 1991, the poverty rate among children in female-headed
     families was 55 percent, more than five times the rate among
     married-couple families (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992).


 
    Some 20 percent of "poverty spells" of children begin with
     birth.  When it does, it lasts for 10 years.  The average
     poor Black child today appears to be in the midst of a  
     poverty spell that lasts for almost 2 decades (Bane, M.J., &
     Ellwood, D.T., 1983).


 
    The majority of poor persons in 1991 were white (66.5
     percent).  A black child is more likely to be poor than a
     white or Latino child.  For children younger than 18 years
     old, the poverty rate in 1991 was 16.8 percent for white
     children, 40.4 percent for children of Hispanic origins, and
     43.9 percent for black children.  (U.S. Bureau of the
     Census, 1992).


 
    About 34.9 percent of the Nation's poor in 1991 lived in
     areas of high poverty concentration (poverty areas).  While
     the majority of the 12.5 million poor poverty area residents
     lived in central cities (60 percent), 26.1 percent lived
     outside metropolitan areas, and 13.9 percent lived in
     suburban areas (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992).


 
    In 1992, nearly 40 percent of children were not covered by
     employer health insurance (Children's Defense Fund, 1992).  
     Despite the existence of Medicaid, 28.6 percent of the poor
     in 1991 reported they had no medical insurance of any kind
     during 1991 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992).


 
    Early childhood experiences contribute to poor children's
     high rate of school failure, dropout, delinquency, early
     childbearing, and adult poverty (National Center for
     Children in Poverty, 1990).

 
    Poor families are less likely to have nutritionally adequate
     diets than nonpoor families.  Children who have inadequate
     diets lag in growth and have more frequent, more severe, and
     longer-lasting infectious diseases.  Inadequate nutrition,
     including iron deficiency (with or without anemia), may also
     affect cognitive development and social behavior, with
     undernourished children being more apathetic (Kotch, J., &
     Shackelford, J., 1989).


 
    Poor children are believed to experience mental and
     emotional problems more frequently than nonpoor ones (Gould,
     M.S., Wunsch-Hitzig, R., & Dohrenwend, B., 1981).  The 1987
     report, Children's Mental Health: Problems and Services,
     noted the relationship between poverty and minority group
     membership and environmental stresses.  These stresses posed
     risks to children's mental health (Dougherty, D.H., Saxe,
     L.M., Cross, T., & Silverman, N., 1987).


 
    The 1985 Nationwide Food Consumption Survey revealed that
     black children 1-5 years of age from families below 130
     percent of poverty were more likely than black children of
     all incomes to be below the 1980 Recommended Dietary
     Allowances of the National Academy of Sciences, Food and
     Nutrition Board, for mean intakes of food energy, calcium,
     iron, and zinc (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Human
     Nutrition Information Service, 1985).


 
    Data from NHANES I (1971-1975) and NHANES II (1976-1980)
     provide several measures of child growth.  Among 1-to-5-
     year-olds, poor children had lower values than nonpoor
     children for height, weight, and triceps skinfold thickness.  
     The magnitude of many of the poverty-related differences
     decreased between the two surveys, but these changes did not
     reach statistical significance (Jones, D.Y., Nesheim, M.C.,
     & Habicht, J.P., 1985).


 
    Fifty-one percent of the students reported smoking their
     first cigarette in the eighth grade or below.  Those who
     tried alcohol for the first time in the eighth grade or
     below were 67 percent (American School Health Association,
     Association for the Advancement of Health Education, &
     Society for Public Health Education, 1989).  Every 12
     seconds of the school day, one American child dropped out
     (380,000) (Children's Defense Fund, 1992).


 
    Teenage women who are poor and who have below-average basic
     skills, regardless of their race, are five-and-a-half times
     more likely to have children than nonpoor teenage women with
     average or better basic skills (National Longitudinal
     Survey, 1981, calculation by Center for Labor Market
     Studies, Northeastern University) (Johnson, C.M., Miranda,
     L., Sherman, A., & Weill, J.D., 1991).


 
    One-quarter of all American children are born out of
     wedlock, and 40 percent of them will live in a single-parent
     family before they reach their 18th birthday (Special
     Report, Business Week, 1988).


 
    In 1989, more than 27 percent of all births were to
     unmarried mothers.  The percentage of births by unmarried
     women in 1989 was 64 percent higher than in 1980 (National
     Center for Health Statistics, Monthly Vital Statistics
     Report, 1990).


 
    The 1988 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) revealed
     that 39.9 percent of the births in the 3-4 years prior to
     the survey were unintended.  The proportion of births that
     were unintended, including both unwanted and mistimed,
     declined as income rose.  For those families living below
     the federal poverty line, the proportion of unintended
     births was 58.6 percent (Forrest, J.D., & Singh, S., 1990).


 
    The 1989 teen birth rate of 58.1 births per 1,000 teenagers,
     was the highest teen birth rate since 1970 (National Center
     for Health Statistics, 1990).  Single-parent teenage
     families impose a large and lasting burden on society.  
     Beyond the obvious dollar costs to the public sector,
     estimated at over $16 billion annually, are other social
     costs imposed on mothers and infants whose potentials and
     lives are blighted (Abrahamse, A.F., Morrison, P.A., &
     Waite, L.J., 1988).


 
    About 68,000 children and youths are homeless and 186,000
     are living in shared housing at a given time (U.S. General
     Accounting Office, 1989).


 
    In the 29 cities surveyed, the demand by families with
     children increased to 82 percent and just over two-thirds of
     those requesting emergency food assistance were families
     with children.  Forty-six percent of the cities reported
     they were unable to provide adequate quantities of food (The
     United States Conference of Mayors, 1992).


 
    More than 250,000 children in this country are living apart
     from their families in foster families, group homes,
     residential treatment centers, and child care institutions.  
     A disproportionate number are minority children.  Increasing
     numbers of young children, often younger than age 2, are
     entering public care in many States.  Many are babies born
     to drug- abusing parents, and are at high risk for medical
     and developmental problems.  Some States also are reporting
     growing numbers of teens living apart from their families.  
     Compared with such children in the past, young people in
     public care have more severe physical and emotional problems
     and a greater need for specialized services (Children's
     Defense Fund, A Vision for America's Future, 1989).


 
    Eighty percent of children in foster care have experienced
     physical and sexual abuse or neglect (American Academy of
     Pediatrics, 1987).  While child mistreatment often goes
     undetected in some middle- and upper-class families, there
     is an important association between poverty and child
     maltreatment (U.S. Congress, Office of Technology
     Assessment, 1988).


 
    Nearly two-thirds of all poor families with children spend
     more than half their income on housing (American Housing
     Survey, calculation by Center for Labor Market Studies,
     Northeastern University) (cited in Johnson, C.M., Miranda,
     L., Sherman, A., & Weill, J.D., 1991).


 
    In 1991, 54 percent of all poor families were maintained by
     women with no husband present.  Among poor black families,
     78.3 percent were maintained by women with no husband
     present, and for families of Hispanic origin, the comparable
     figure was 45.7 percent (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992).


 
    Being a woman increases one's chances of being poor by 60
     percent.  If one is also black or Hispanic and has a work
     history of being poorly paid, the chances of falling below
     the government's poverty threshold escalates.  Nearly three-
     quarters (72 percent) of all the poor over age 65 are women
     (Older Women's League, 1988).


 
    The poverty rate for persons 65 years and over was 12.4
     percent in 1991.  Though the poverty rate for the elderly
     was lower in 1989 than that for the nonelderly, a higher
     proportion of elderly than nonelderly were concentrated just
     over their respective poverty threshold (i.e., between 100
     percent and 125 percent of their threshold).  Consequently,
     19.1 percent of the Nation's 11.8 million "near poor"
     persons was elderly, compared with about 10.1 percent of
     persons below the official poverty level (U.S. Bureau of the
     Census, 1992).


 
    Poverty, lack of education, and access barriers to health
     care predispose many American minorities to disproportionate
     mortality and morbidity (U.S. Department of Health and Human
     Services, 1985).  A black infant born in the United States
     is 3.8 times more likely to die as a result of homicide and
     3.2 percent times as likely to die from meningitis than
     white babies (National Center for Health Statistics, 1989).


 
    American Indian and Alaskan native elders have a poverty
     rate of 61 percent and a life expectancy between 3 and 4
     years less than that of the general older U.S. population
     (U.S. Senate, Older Americans Act Amendments of 1987, 1987).


 
    Hispanics are the fastest growing minority in the United
     States.  Poverty and lack of health insurance are the
     greatest impediments to health care for Hispanics (Council
     on Scientific Affairs, 1991).


 
    AIDS was the sixth leading cause of death among those 15 to
     24 years of age in 1989, yet experts fear that teenagers'
     feelings of invulnerability are causing many of them to
     ignore the risk of unprotected sex (National Center for
     Health Statistics, 1992).


 
    In most states, fewer than 60 percent of 2-year-olds are
     fully immunized (Children's Defense Fund, Summer 1992 Survey
     of State Immunization Programs).  Since 1988, American
     teenage boys have been more likely to die from gunshot
     wounds than from all natural causes combined (National
     Center for Health Statistics, 1991).


 
    Poverty rates decrease dramatically as years of school
     completed increases: in 1991 the poverty rate was 24.2
     percent for householders who had not completed high school,
     10.5 percent for those who had graduated from high school
     but not attended college, and 6.5 percent for those with 1
     or more years of college (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992).


 
    One-fourth of all children born in the United States will be
     on welfare some time in their lives.  Educating America's
     future work force reaches beyond the classroom (Special
     Report, Business Week, 1988).  Early childhood experiences
     contribute to poor children's high rate of school failure,
     dropout delinquency, early childbearing, and adult poverty
     (National Center for Children in Poverty, 1990).


 
    About 43.6 percent of the poor received cash assistance
     through such programs as Aid to Families with Dependent
     Children (AFDC) in 1991.  A Federal study in 1988 estimated
     there were only enough low-skill job openings in the Nation
     to employ one out of six AFDC recipients who might be
     expected to work under the Family Support Act of 1988.


 
    The needs of the American workplace and the needs of the
     disadvantaged may be merging for the first time in recent
     history.  The drive to raise productivity and increase
     international competitiveness is transforming the debate
     over social equity into a discussion about economic growth
     (Special Report, Business Week, 1988).  Two-year and
     technical colleges offering degrees below a bachelors will
     be significant factors in the technological growth of
     communities (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1989).


 
    One in five poor families with children cannot escape
     poverty even though the head of household works full time
     throughout the year (Johnson, C.M., Miranda, L., Sherman,
     A., & Weill, J.D., 1991).  The median income of young
     families with children (headed by someone younger than age
     30) dropped 32 percent between 1973 and 1990.  In 1991, 39.8
     percent of poor persons 15 years and over worked, and 9
     percent worked year-round, full time (U.S. Bureau of the
     Census, 1992).


 
    In 1991, in 5.8 percent of all poor families, at least one
     person worked, and in 1.3 million poor families (16.8
     percent of all poor families) there were two or more workers
     in 1991 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992).  The educational
     level of parents is closely associated with child poverty.  
     Parents who have not completed high school are less likely
     to be employed steadily than parents with more education.  
     The former also tend to earn less when employed (Johnson,
     C.M., Miranda, L., Sherman, A., & Weill, J.D., 1991).


 
    Poverty is associated with social circumstances that
     influence health.  These may include limited parental
     education, extramarital births or single parenthood,
     adolescent parenthood, and, for minority groups, racial or
     ethnic discrimination.  These economic and social burdens
     can engender feelings of despair and powerlessness that
     hinder healthy behavior (Klerman, L.V., & Parker, M., 1991).

 
    Three broad problems recur throughout the literature on
     homicide, assault, and suicide:  
     (1) poverty, racial discrimination, and sex discrimination;
     (2) cultural acceptance of violence, and; (3) ready
     available lethal agents (Rosenberg, M.L., Gelles, R.I.
     Holinger, P.C., Zahn, M.A., Stark, E., Conn, J.M., Fajman,
     N.N., & Karlson, T.A., 1987).
      
      
References



Written by
Nancy Leidenfrost,
National Program Leader,
USDA Extension Service,  nleidenf@esusda.gov ,  2-1-1993.


Compilation and HTML by Daniel_Zalik@brown.edu