Addressing Child Poverty: How Does the United States Compare With Other Nations?

Abstract

Poverty during childhood raises a number of policy challenges. The earliest years are critical in terms of future cognitive and emotional development and early health outcomes, and have long-lasting consequences on future health. In this article child poverty in the United States is compared with a set of other developed countries. To the surprise of few, results show that child poverty is high in the United States. But why is poverty so much higher in the United States than in other rich nations? Among child poverty drivers, household composition and parent's labor market participation matter a great deal. But these are not insurmountable problems. Many of these disadvantages can be overcome by appropriate public policies. For example, single mothers have a very high probability of poverty in the United States, but this is not the case in other countries where the provision of work support increases mothers' labor earnings and together with strong public cash support effectively reduces child poverty. In this article we focus on the role and design of public expenditure to understand the functioning of the different national systems and highlight ways for improvements to reduce child poverty in the United States. We compare relative child poverty in the United States with poverty in a set of selected countries. The takeaway is that the United States underinvests in its children and their families and in so doing this leads to high child poverty and poor health and educational outcomes. If a nation like the United States wants to decrease poverty and improve health and life chances for poor children, it must support parental employment and incomes, and invest in children's futures as do other similar nations with less child poverty.

Keywords: child poverty; cross-national; income supports; public expenditure; public services.

Figure 1.

Levels of child poverty in selected countries, 2012. For Canada, data are from 2011. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Income Distribution Database.

Figure 2.

Long-term trends in child poverty. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Income Distribution Database.

Figure 3.

Share of low birth weight as a % of total live births, 2011. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Health Database.

Figure 4.

Overweight percent at age 15, according to family affluence, 2009 to 2010. Family affluence is computed using the number of cars, holidays, PCs, and whether the child has its own bedroom. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Family Database.

Figure 5.

Mean reading literacy scores according to parents’ economic, social, and cultural status, Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012. Parents’ economic social cultural status is a PISA-specific score obtained by combining 1) the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) level of parents, 2) household possessions, and 3) the occupational status of parents. Low, medium, and high are on the basis of the first, second, and third tertiles, respectively (bottom third, middle third, and top third of the student population on the basis of their socioeconomic status). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) PISA 2012 results.

Figure 6.

Poverty rates according to household type and number of adults at work (lowest, highest, and average values among the selected countries and US value). Differences within each box show the spread of poverty rates in the selected set of countries. The bottom of the bar presents the lowest poverty rate in the set of countries. The top bar presents the maximum. The dot refers to the average poverty rate in the set of countries. And the X presents the United States (USA) situation. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Income Distribution Database.

Figure 7.

How much do social transfers alleviate child poverty? Poverty rates before (market income) and after social transfers (disposable income), 2012. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Income Distribution Database.

Figure 8.

Size of public spending for children and families, according to cash and in-kind expenditure. Only public support that is exclusively for families (eg, child payments and allowances, parental leave benefits, and childcare support) is counted. Spending recorded in other social policy areas as health and housing support also assist families, but not exclusively. Coverage of spending on family and community services might be limited to federal support only. State and local governments receive general block grants to finance their activities, and reporting requirements might not be sufficiently detailed for central statistical agencies to have a detailed view of the nature of local spending. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Social Expenditure Database.

Figure 9.

Do family expenditures lead to lower child poverty? Child poverty rates versus cash and in-kind expenditures. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Social Expenditure Database and authors’ calculations.