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According to the Office of Research at the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the U.S. has one of the highest rates of child poverty in the developed world. Of the 35 wealthy countries studied by UNICEF, only Romania has a child poverty rate higher than the 23 percent rate in the U.S.
Black children are more likely to live in poverty than children of any other race. The poverty rate among Black children is 38.2 percent, more than twice as high as the rate among whites. The poverty rate for Hispanic children is 32.3 percent.
The longer a child lives in poverty, the tougher it can be for them to climb out later in life. According to an analysis by Columbia University's National Center for Children in Poverty, 45 percent of people who spent at least half of their childhood in poverty were poor at age 35. Among those who spent less than half of their childhood in poverty, just 8 percent were poor at age 35.
In Pennsylvania, 37.6 percent of Black children and 41.6 percent of Latino children lived in poverty as of 2010. Fifty-three percent of Black children raised in the bottom fifth of the income distribution will remain there as adults compared to only 32 percent of white children raised in similar economic circumstances.
Compounding the poverty issue for children is the issue of homelessness.
An estimated one in 45 children - or 1.6 million - was homeless in America each year between 2006 and 2010. Approximately 40 percent of those homeless children, or 640,000, were five or younger.
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