State of America's Children

State of America's Children

Although the United States and Canada are the most advanced industrialized countries in the world, they have some the highest child poverty rates in the industrialized world. Some children are poor because their parents are working, yet poor. Other poor children live with single mothers or recent immigrants. Children living in poverty experience increased strain on their physical, emotional, psychological, and social well-being. That said, there are some industrialized nations that have reduced child poverty rates through a number of programs and policies (Stanwick, 2006).

Gap between Rich and Poor

By many accounts, the poor in weathlier countries like Canada and the United States are getting poorer, and the gap between the lowest- and highest-income families has widened. Average incomes for the poorest in Canada, for example, have increased by about 18 percent over the past 10 years, while the wealthiest families experienced a 30 percent increase. Young couples with children experienced significant downward shifts, as their average wealth fell about 30 percent over the last decade. Inequality has worsened among families with children (Ackerman and Izard , 2003).

Causes of Poverty

Children may be contributing to family poverty because they are a drain on family resources; however, research shows that in countries with more family-friendly policies, disposable income falls only moderately when families have children. In 2007, Wendy Sigle-Rushton, London School of Economics, and Jane Waldfogel, Columbia University School of Social Work, used data from seven Western, industrialized countries to compare gaps in gross and disposable family income between families with and without children (Rushton and Waldfogel, 2007). They found that differences in earnings and labor market participation of women were major drivers in the gap in gross and disposable income; taxes and government transfers also narrowed the differences. This means that poverty rates are strongly related to parents—especially mothers—having access to the labor force, the wages they receive, and government policies aimed at assisting families in obtaining and holding decent-paying, stable employment (Beiser and Noh, 2000).

Many studies have documented the rise of precarious employment characterized by poor job quality, low wages, and few or no benefits. Over the past decade, Canada and the United States have lost hundreds of thousands of jobs in the manufacturing sector, resulting in the loss of higher-waged, permanent jobs with relatively low education requirements. Many of these displaced workers become employed in temporary, low-waged, precarious, nonstandard jobs. Recent immigrants to Canada and the United States, who often reside in large cities (with high cost of living) parachute into precarious labor markets. This has forced many recent arrivals and others to become multiple job holders in an attempt to make ends meet. This has also contributed to family instability, at a time of substantial cuts to social assistance (Chung and Muntaner, 2006).

Children are poor for many reasons—mostly due to their parent's relationship to the labor force. Some are poor because their parents earn low wages and/ or work nonstandard jobs; others have parents with inadequate education or educational credentials that are ...