Born Losers

An estimated 14.1 million Americans under age 18 are poor.

• 13% of all children (40 percent of black children and 8% of white children) are born poor.
• 37% of children live in poverty for at least a year before reaching age 18.
• 10% of children spend at least half their childhood years (9 years or longer) in poverty.
• Black children are 9 times more likely than white children to be poor for at least three-quarters of their childhoods -- 18% versus 2%.
• 69% of black children and 31 percent of white children who are poor at birth stay poor for least half their childhoods.

Childhood poverty rates, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, have ranged between 15 and 23 percent over the past four decades. In 2009, a family with two adults and two children was considered poor if its income was below $21,756.

Using data from a University of Michigan program that has been tracking the same families for over 40 years, economists at the Urban Institute found that 49% of children who are born into households below the poverty line spend at least half of their first 18 years in poverty. In general, the longer a child is poor, the worse his or her adult outcome.Those poor at birth are more likely to be poor between ages 25 and 30, drop out of high school, have a teen non-marital birth, and have patchy employment records than those not poor at birth and all generally increasing with the number of years poor as a child.

In 1928 the richest 1 percent of Americans received 23.9 percent of the nation's total income.By 2007 the richest 1 percent received 23.5 percent of the total.