Chapter 2
Who Are the Poor?

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE POOR

In 2005 almost thirty-seven million people in the United States, or 12.6% of the population, were poor. (See Table 2.1.) Another 4.2% had income-to-poverty ratios between 1 and 1.25, meaning that 16.8% of the U.S. population was poor or near-poor.

Race and Ethnicity

Historically, poverty rates have been consistently lower for whites than for minorities in the United States. According to the Census Bureau in Poverty in the United States: 2000 (September 2001, http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p60-214.pdf), in 1959, 18.1% of all whites, or 28.5 million people, lived below the poverty level; in the same year, 55.1% of African-Americans, or 9.9 million people, lived in poverty. By 1970 the rate of poverty of white Americans had declined to 9.9%, about where it remained for the next ten years. The poverty rate for African-Americans was still almost triple that of whites in 1970, at 33.5%. By 2000, a year in which the U.S. economy was strong, only 9.4% of whites lived in poverty, whereas over one-fifth (22.1%) of all African-Americans did.

In 2005 African-Americans and Hispanics continued to be disproportionately affected by poverty. In 2005, 8.3% of non-Hispanic whites were poor, compared with 24.9% of African-Americans and 21.8% of Hispanics. (See Table 2.1.) Even more African-American and Hispanic children suffered from poverty. Over one-third (33.5%) of African-Americans under the age of eighteen and 28.3% of Hispanics under the age of eighteen were poor, compared with only 14.4% of white children in the same age group. (See Table 1.3 in Chapter 1.)

According to the Census Bureau, the overall Asian-American poverty rate in 2005 was 11.1% (or 1.4 million people). (See Table 2.1.) The rate was slightly lower than it was in 1987, the first year that the Census Bureau kept statistics on Asians and Pacific Islanders, when 12.7% lived below the poverty level. See Table 1.3 for the breakdown of poverty rates by different age groups among Asians and Pacific Islanders.

Age

CHILD POVERTY

Young adults and children under eighteen years of age were the age groups most likely to be poor (18.2% and 17.6%, respectively). Among these groups, it was the youngest children that suffered the most from poverty and deprivation. In 2005 one in five (20%) children under age six were poor, and more than one in four (25.4%) children under age six were poor or near-poor. Almost one in ten children this age (8.9%) were desperately poor, living in families with income-to-poverty ratios of under 0.5. (See Table 2.1.) In Poor Kids in a Rich Country: America's Children in Comparative Perspective (2003), Lee Rainwater and Timothy M. Smeeding indicate that the United States has the highest rate of child poverty among the fifteen richest nations in the world.

In 2005 children living with a female householder were particularly likely to live in poverty. Over a quarter of these children (28.7%) lived in poverty, compared with 13% of children living with a single dad and 5.1% of children living with married parents. (See Table 2.2.) Data from 2004 provide a more detailed look at children in female-householder families. In that year 53% of children under age six living in female-household families were poor, compared with 37% of children aged six to seventeen. (See Table 2.3.) Almost half (49%) of African-American children and over half (52%) of Hispanic children living in female-householder families were poor, compared with about a third (32%) of white, non-Hispanic children living in female-householder families.

Children are not only more likely than adults to be poor but they also arguably suffer more from the deprivations of poverty than do adults. Childhood poverty is a matter of great concern because strong evidence suggests that food insecurity and lack of good medical care caused by poverty can limit a child's physical and cognitive development. In addition, poverty is the largest predictor of child abuse and neglect. In fact, the Children's Defense Fund (2006, http://www.childrensdefense.org/site/PageNavigator/c2pp_poverty) argues that "poverty is the largest driving force behind the 'Cradle to Prison Pipeline,'" a life trajectory that the organization believes leads children to marginalized lives and premature deaths. In addition, the National Center for Children in Poverty states in "Children's Mental Health: Facts for Policymakers" (November 2006, http://www.nccp.org/media/ucr06b_text.pdf) that children in poverty are more likely to suffer from mental health problems than are other children.

POVERTY AMONG THE ELDERLY

In contrast with children, senior citizens are underrepresented among the poor. Barely one in ten (10.1%) adults aged sixty-five and older were poor, up by 0.3% from the year before. (See Table 2.2.) From 1959 to 2002 the number of people sixty-five years and older living in poverty dropped significantly, from about 35% to 10.4%. (See Figure 2.1.) Most observers credit Social Security for the sharp decline in poverty among the elderly.

Urban Areas

People living in inner cities are most likely to suffer from poverty. In 2005, 17% of people living in inner cities lived below the poverty line. (See Table 2.2.) Only 9.3% of people who lived in suburban areas—inside metropolitan statistical areas but outside principal cities—lived below the poverty line. In rural areas the poverty rate was also high—14.5%.

Family Status

In 2005 people living in families (10.8%) were less likely to suffer from poverty than people living in unrelated subfamilies (37.4%) or in households with unrelated individuals (21.1%). (See Table 2.1.) However, there was a great difference in the poverty rate between different family structures. Even though about one in every ten families in the United States was living in poverty in 2005, families headed by married couples had the lowest poverty rate (5.1%). More than a quarter (28.7%) of all families with a female householder (no husband present) were living in poverty, a 0.4% increase over the previous year. Male householders were also more likely than married-couple families to be in poverty (13%), but they were much less likely than female householders to be poor. (See Table 2.2.)

SINGLE-PARENT FAMILIES

An increasing number of children are being raised by one parent, usually the mother. The proportion of single-parent families grew rapidly between 1970 and the mid-1990s, whereas the proportion of families headed by married couples dropped. Since then the structure of U.S. households and families has remained relatively stable. In 2003, 23.3% of all households were married couples with children, down from 40.3% in 1970. (See Figure 2.2.) Another 28.2% of all households were married couples without children, down slightly from 30.3% in 1970. The percentage of other family households, including single-parent households headed by single women and single men, had risen to 16.4% of all households in 2003 from 10.6% in 1970. Most of these other family households were headed by female householders. Table 2.4 shows that in 2003 there were almost three times as many single female-headed families as there were single male-headed families (13.6 million female householders versus 4.6 million male householders).

One factor in the rise of single-parent families is the rise in the divorce rate. In 1970 only 3.5% of men and 5.7% of women were separated or divorced. (See Figure 2.3.) By 2003, 10.1% of men and 13.3% of women were divorced. The percentage of divorced women is consistently higher than the percentage of divorced men because divorced men are more likely to remarry. After divorce, women most often raise the children. As Table 2.5 shows, almost two-thirds (64.2%) of custodial parents in 2003 were women.

Another reason for the increase in single-parent families is the rise in people who never marry yet still have children. Jason Fields reports in America's Families and Living Arrangements: 2003 (November 2004, http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/p20-553.pdf) that the percentage of people aged fifteen or older who had never married rose from 24.9% in 1970 to 28.6% in 2003. The proportion of those who have never married has increased as young adults delay the age at which they marry. Between 1970 and 2003 the median age at first marriage had risen from 20.8 years to 25.3 years for women, and from 23.2 years to 27.1 years for men. In addition, the proportion of all households that were unmarried-partner heterosexual households steadily rose between 1996 and 2003, from 2.9% to 4.2% of all households. (See Figure 2.4.)

Single-parent women are more likely than single-parent men to have never been married. In 2003, 4.4 million of 10.1 million single mothers (43.6%), compared with 601,000 of 1.7 million single fathers (35.3%), had never been married. (See Table 2.6.) In 2003 African-American single mothers were most likely to have never been married (1.9 million of 3.1 million, or 61.3%), followed by Hispanic women (850,000 of 1.8 million, or 47.2%), and non-Hispanic white women (1.5 million of 4.9 million, or 30.6%).

In 2002 African-American children were far more likely to live with a single parent than were white or Hispanic children. In that year 48% of African-American children lived with their mothers and 5% with their fathers. Twenty-five percent of Hispanic children lived with their mothers and 5% with their fathers. Sixteen percent of white children lived with their mothers and 4% with their fathers. (See Figure 2.5.)

Jason Fields reports in Children's Living Arrangements and Characteristics: March 2002 (June 2003, http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p20-547.pdf) that in 2002 a higher percentage of African-American children (9%) than Hispanics (6%) or whites (4%) lived with neither parent. In part, this is because African-American children are more likely to live with grandparents without the presence of either parent.

CHILD SUPPORT

Child support is an important source of income for single parents, especially mothers. In 2003, 64.2% of custodial mothers and 39.8% of custodial