Chapter 5: Families Experiencing Poverty

The official poverty rate in 2020 was 11.4 percent, up 1.0 percentage point from 10.5 percent in 2019. Specific to people under the age of 18, the poverty rate increased from 14.4 percent in 2019 to 16.1 percent in 2020 (U.S. Census, 2021). Although exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, the contributors to high rates of child poverty existed long before the pandemic crisis. Such contributing factors are systemic inequalities, unemployment, lack of access to healthcare, and single parenthood (Creamer et al., 2022; Haider, 2021). There are higher rates of poverty among African Americans and Hispanics (U.S. Census, 2021). There are also considerations regarding the two types of poverty. Generational poverty is when a family has lived in poverty for at least two generations. Conversely, situational poverty is due to loss of household income. Such contributing factors can be due to illness, joblessness, or even divorce.