Nation’S Child Poverty Grows More Widespread Almost 14.5 Million Children In U.S. Are Classified As Poor

The percentage of Southern children living in poverty is about the same as it was in 1969, even though most states in the region have robust economies and budget surpluses, the Children’s Defense Fund said Monday.

“Equally disturbing is the fact that the rest of the nation is catching up with the South,” said Marian Wright Edelman, president of the defense fund, a Washington-based nonprofit child advocacy group.

In 1996, the West matched the South in the percentage of poor children - 22.9 percent - the first time another region equaled the South in child poverty, the group said in a report issued at the beginning of a two-day strategy meeting.

The defense fund placed the poverty line at $12,516 for a family of three and $16,036 for a family of four.

The organization said that in 1996, 5.5 million children living in the 16-state South, including Washington, D.C., were poor and 2.6 million lived in extreme poverty, with incomes of about $120 a week for a family of three.

In 1969, 22.3 percent of children in families in the South were poor. In 1996, 22.9 percent of all Southern children - including those in foster care, living on their own, or with a nonrelative adult - were living in poverty.

The Midwest had the lowest percentage of impoverished children among the four regions, 11.5 percent, followed by the Northeast with 19.2 percent.

Since 1969, the South has seen a slight rise in the percentage of poor white children - 13 percent to 16 percent - and a decline in the percentage of poor black children from 49 percent to 40 percent.

Nationally, 20.5 percent of children, or almost 14.5 million, were classified as poor in 1996. That’s up from 14 percent in 1969.

The defense fund defined the 1996 poverty level for a family of three as having an annual income of $12,516 and at $16,036 for a family of four.

The defense fund and other child advocacy groups are gearing up for a new push for more federal and state help to reduce child poverty.They want a commitment from Congress for $20 billion in the next five years for early childhood education, child care and other such programs.

“The majority of these children live in working families, so ending welfare as we know it, which has been the political cry in this country, will not help them,” Edelman said.

The children can be helped, she said, if their families can get decent jobs, health care and child care.