While poverty rates have decreased for White and Asian families, Black children are more likely to live in poverty than children of other races, a new study from the Pew Research Center shows.
In fact, 2 out of 5 Black children live in poverty, or 38 percent of the 11 million Black children living in America, the study reveals. That means Black children are four times as likely as White children to grow up in poverty, which Pew outlines as a family of four with two children and an income less than $24,000 a year, CNN Money reports.
The study also revealed that this is the first time since 1974 that there are more Black children growing up poor than White children; a staggering figure given there are three times as many White children in the nation. But while the numbers show that Black children are more likely to live in poverty, based on Black unemployment rates or earning less income than their White and Asian counterparts, there are even more Hispanic children growing up impoverished.
From CNN Money:
While the overall number of children living in poverty in the United States has declined from 16.3 million in 2010 to 14.7 million in 2013, the differences by race and ethnicity are stark. In 2013, one out of every three Hispanic children, or 30.4% of the 18 million Hispanic children in the country, lived in poverty compared to 1 out of every 10 white children and 1 out of every 10 Asian children.
And while black children are more likely to live in poverty, the total number of impoverished Hispanic children (5.4 million) is higher than that of blacks (4.2 million), whites (4.1 million) or Asians (0.4 million) simply because there are more of them.
Part of the difference in poverty rates among children of different races can be explained by the employment and income differences their parents experience, said Mark Hugo Lopez, the director of Hispanic research at the Pew Research Center. “The labor market has recovered,” since the recession, Lopez said but “the recovery has been uneven.” Blacks are more likely to be unemployed and earn less than those from other races. Last month, the unemployment rate for blacks was 9.5%, compared to 6.6% for Hispanics, 4.6% for whites and 3.8% for Asians. Since 2001, one million more black children have slipped into poverty.
Black people are also earning a lot less than other races. While the median household income for Blacks is 2013 was $35,000, that number nearly doubled for Asian households ($72,000). White households came in at $57,000, a more than $20,000 bump from Black households.
Study: Black Children Are More Likely To Live In Poverty Than Children Of Other Races was originally published on newsone.com