Study: Child poverty down but racial divide remains
Monday, September 21, 2015 8:20 am
DURHAM, N.H. - Child poverty rates fell slightly across the country in 2014 but still remain higher than at the end of the Great Recession in 2009, according to new research from the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. Black children are by far the most disadvantaged with an overall poverty rate of 38.4 percent, nearly three times the non-Hispanic white child poverty rate (13.0 percent) and 6.3 percentage points higher than the Hispanic child poverty rate. "It is encouraging to see declines in child poverty continue for a second year in a row," the researchers said. "However, it is troubling that five years into economic recovery child poverty remains 1.7 percentage points higher than in 2009, at the end of the recession and more than one in five children still lived below the poverty line in 2014. It is imperative to keep state and federal policies that may improve child poverty on the radar, as extensive research documents the long term consequences of growing up poor." The research was conducted by Beth Mattingly, director of research on vulnerable families at the Carsey School and research assistant professor of sociology at UNH; Andrew Schaefer, a doctoral student in sociology and a vulnerable families research associate at the Carsey School; and Jessica Carson, vulnerable families research scientist at the Carsey School.
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