Child poverty is down over the past few decades, but now it seems to be concentrated in Black and brown communities.
The percentage of children living in poverty is down over the 25 years preceding the pandemic, said Jennifer Ng’andu of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
“We’ve cut child poverty by half over the past generation,” she said, “so just to give you a sense of that in New Jersey that’s a reduction in 1993 from 22% to 2019 where it’s 9%.”
But a report from the nonprofit Child Trends finds that Black and Latino children are three times as likely as white children to live in poverty, even as the number of children living in poverty in the US fell from about 19 million in 1993 to 8 million in 2019. The primary reason — federal government aid.
Ng’andu said federal programs like the expanded child tax credit must be reinstated to prevent a resurgence of child poverty.
“The child tax credit that was nationally based made its way into the hands of millions of New Jersey families, It allowed, sort of, the government of New Jersey to invest in other programs that would round out and really support families who had fallen on hard times,” she said. “Any child in poverty is likely to have less opportunity over time and we see those health consequences play out over their lifetime.”
Other steps that could further drive down poverty, such as increases in the federal minimum wage and expanded Medicaid coverage, have not garnered enough support in Congress.