America's Hungry Youngsters

For the first time, more than half of U.S. public school students live in low-income households. Overall, 51 percent of U.S. schoolchildren came from low-income households(students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches) in 2013. The percentage has grown from 32 percent in 1989, 2006, 42 percent and climbed in 2011 to 48 percent.

The analysis shows the highest percentages of poor students in Southern and Western states. Mississippi had the highest rate of low-income students -- 71 percent. New Hampshire had the lowest, at 27 percent.

An increasing number of school districts now also serve dinner to students. In Cleveland, where the vast majority of the school district’s 39,000 students are poor, Eric Gordon, chief executive of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, said that most schools there have regular programs to send food home with students, and the district has staff who help homeless families find places to stay.

Kids born to middle- and lower-income families could find it harder to catch up in later life as wealthier children enjoy ever larger advantages. Wealthy parents are spending more lavishly on childcare, education and accessories such as toys, while families in the middle are spending roughly the same or less after inflation. And extracurricular activities such as after- school clubs have increasingly become the province of privileged kids. Since the 1970s, wealthy students have become more active in clubs and sports, while working-class teenagers lag behind, Kaisa Snellman, an economic sociologist at global graduate business school INSEAD, wrote in a paper.   That could give them a head start when it comes to enrolling in college, where they already have the advantage according to a 2014 report from the Herndon, Virginia-based National Student Clearinghouse.

A student at one of America’s most selective colleges is 14 times more likely to be from a high-income family than from a low-income one, based on a 2010 study by Carnevale and fellow Georgetown University economist Jeff Strohl. Those schools usually admit less than one-third of applicants.