Doing Poorly: U.S. Child Poverty in Cross-National Context

Abstract

This article compares the levels and patterns of child poverty in the United States to those found in 14 other rich nations in Europe, Canada and Australia. It examines demographic variations in child poverty rates, and analyzes the roles of both family earnings and social transfers as either contributors to or reducers of levels of child poverty. Since the poverty rates of children in two-parent versus single-parent families differ greatly, separate sections of the paper describe the “income packages” and the patterns of child poverty for each family type. Finally, we consider policy options for reducing the very high rate of U.S. child poverty.