Ready by 5 - Reading by 8
A Birth to Eight Framework for Early Grade Reading
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Child Poverty and Its Impact
CONTENTS
(links to source documents are in the postings below)
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1. New! Ending Child Poverty Now - Children's Defense Fund
2. Child Poverty and Its Lasting Consequences - Urban Institute
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3. Poverty Rates for Children Under Age 3 (2015) - National Center for Children in Poverty
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4. Poverty Rates for Black and Hispanic Infants and Toddlers (2015) - National Center for Children in Poverty
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5. 2018 Child Poverty Rates by Race and Ethnicity - Annie E. Casey Kids Count
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6. Risk of Developmental Delay by Economic Status - Child Trends
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7. Risk of Developmental Delay by Race and Ethnicity - Child Trends
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8. Language Delays Among Low-Income Preschool Children - U.S. DHHS
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9. Development and Home Environments of Low-Income Hispanic Children: Kindergarten to Third Grade - National Research Center on Hispanic Children and Families
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10. "Human Development is Economic Development" - James J. Heckman
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Post #1
Ending Child Poverty Now 2019 - Children's Defense Fund
May 2019
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"This second edition of Ending Child Poverty Now updates our earlier study and issues another call for an immediate reduction in child poverty. It confirms, once again, our nation can act now to end child poverty for a majority of children and raise family incomes for millions more. By investing an additional 1.4 percent of our federal budget into existing programs and policies, we can cut child poverty at least 57 percent, lift 5.5 million children out of poverty and help 95 percent of all poor children."
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Recognizing the urgent need to help more poor and near-poor children today, CDF identified nine policy improvements that could be enacted immediately to increase employment, make work pay and meet children’s basic survival needs for food, housing and child support. CDF then commissioned the Urban Institute to estimate the child poverty impacts and costs of these policy improvements. According to the Urban Institute, these combined policy improvements could substantially reduce child poverty as measured by the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) which accounts for the impact of government benefits and tax policy on families.
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Post #2
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Child Poverty and Its Lasting Consequences
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"Children start life on unequal economic footing, and this has important implications for their future well-being. Poverty early in life has been linked to behavioral problems and lower IQ scores as early as age 5 (Duncan, Brooks-Gunn, and Klebanov 1994)."
It has also been linked with lower academic achievement than poverty experienced in later childhood and adolescence (Brooks-Gunn and Duncan 1997; Duncan et al. 1998). Children born into poor families have worse adolescent and adult outcomes than children born into nonpoor families (Ratcliffe and McKernan 2010).
Chronic stress is a contributing factor in the link between childhood poverty and lower levels of working memory (Evans and Schamberg 2009). In fact, a developing body of research is examining the importance of a child’s environment in his or her first years of life (even in utero) and how toxic stress negatively alters early brain development (Eccleston 2011; Evans and Schamberg 2009; National Center for Children in Poverty 1999; Shonkoff et al. 2012).
According to a recent report from the American Academy of Pediatrics, toxic stress in early childhood can lead to permanent changes in the structure and function of the brain; these brain alterations can “create a weak foundation for later learning, behavior, and health” (Shonkoff et al. 2012, e236). Beyond the timing of poverty, extended exposure to poverty as a child is also associated with worse adolescent and adult outcomes (Isaacs and Magnuson 2011; Ratcliffe and McKernan 2010; Wagmiller and Adelman 2009).
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Compared with people never poor as a child, those poor for half their childhoods are nearly 90% more likely to enter their 20's without completing high school and are four times more likely to have a teen premarital birth.
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Over the past four decades, nearly half (49%) of children born to poor parents were poor for at least half their childhoods, and there has been little improvement over time.
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Children who are poor early in life—birth to age 2—are 30 percent less likely to complete high school than children who are first poor later in childhood (controlling for poverty duration and other factors).
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Minority children are less economically secure than white children; 40% of black newborns are poor, compared with 10% of white newborns.
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Black children are worse off, and the magnitude of their disadvantage has persisted over time. Roughly 1-in-3 poor white newborns is persistently poor, while 2-of-3 poor black newborns are persistently poor.
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Post #3
Nearly Half of U.S. Children Under Age 3 are
"Poor" or "Near Poor"
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Poor = At or below the poverty level (annual income of $20,420 family of 3)
Near Poor = Between 100-200% of poverty (between $20,421 to $40,840 family of 3
Nearly 2/3rds of African-American and Latino Infants and Toddlers are Poor or Near Poor
Post #4
Post #5
Poverty Rates for Latino and African-American Children Two-to-Three Times that of White Children
Post #6
Risk of Developmental Delays for African-American and Latino Children Double That of White Children
Nearly 1-in-5 Children Living in Poverty At-Risk of Developmental Delays
Post #7
Early Language Delays Among
Low-Income Preschool Children
Post #8
This study utilized two assessments of the Comprehensive Child Development Program (CDDP):
While both of these were large samples of low-income children drawn from many different parts of the country, neither is representative of children from low-income families nationally.
By 2050 Latino Children Will Represent 1-in-3 U.S. Children
Similar to White Population
Post #9
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“Hispanic or Latino children currently make up roughly 1 in 4 of all children in the United States, and by 2050 are projected to make up 1 in 3, similar to the number of white children.
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Given this increase, how Hispanic children fare will have a profound impact on the social and economic well-being of the country as a whole.”
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“Notably, though, 5.7 million Hispanic children, or one third of all Hispanic children in the United States, are in poverty, more than in any other racial/ethnic group. Nearly two thirds of Hispanic children live in low-income families, defined as having incomes of less than two times the federal poverty level.”
Human Development is Economic Development -
James J. Heckman, 2015
Post #10
Note: James J. Heckman is a Nobel Prize winning American economist who is currently at the University of Chicago. He is strong advocate of the economic benefits of investing in high quality (effective) supports and interventions for healthy early childhood development.
