Econintersect: The UNICEF Innocenti Research Center measures child poverty and issues periodic report cards. The most recent, Report Card 10, places the United States in next to last place, just above Romania, among the 35 most advanced world economies. The Washington Post has a map of the world showing the 35 “wealthy” countries.
Click on map for much larger image.
The Daily Kos points out that the poor statistics for the U.S. were completed last year, long before the sequestration of 2013 . From the Daily Kos:
This is the context before the start of sequestration, as Bryce Covert points out. With the full effects of sequestration yet to come, we’ve already seen kids cut from Head Start programs, less housing assistance available to families struggling to stay off the street, and homeless shelters losing funding among the sequester’s effects that will hit poor kids directly.
The Daily Kos also has the following, which indicates a bottom level U.S. ranking in another aspect of child poverty:
But the picture looks even worse when you examine just how far below the relative poverty line these children tend to fall. The UNICEF report looks at something it calls the “child poverty gap,” which measures how far the average poor child falls below the relative poverty line. It does this by measuring the gap between the relative poverty line and the average income of poor families.
Alarmingly, the United States also scores second-to-last on this measurement, with the average poor child living in a home that makes 36 percent less than the relative poverty line.
The following graphic gives additional perspective to the relative standing of the 35 countries (from The Washington Post).
John Lounsbury with hat tip to Russell Huntley.
Sources:
- New league tables of child poverty in the world’s rich countries (Report Card 10, UNICEF Innocenti Research Center, May 2012)
- Map: How 35 countries compare on child poverty (the U.S. is ranked 34th) (Max Fisher, Washington Post, 15 April 2013)
- U.S. is second-worst of 35 developed nations when it comes to child poverty (Daily Kos, 18 April 2013)
