The main finding is that poverty among children is increasing although North Carolina's economy remains strong. School truants and dropouts are much more likely to engage in juvenile delinquency and criminal behavior. The final section of this report suggests that current policy initiatives designed to relieve the hardships of childhood poverty are smart investments in tomorrow's citizens. Modest monetary investments in today's children will save the state major expenses in the criminal justice system later. The percentage of families with children under the age of 18 living below the poverty level has increased significantly during the last decade.
Children are very poor, however, even if their household income is above the actual poverty line.
In this report, children whose families earn up to 125 percent of the poverty line are defined as poor. By 1996 the percentage was up to 25.9. Approximately one out of four children in North Carolina were living at or near the poverty line in 1996, the last year for which Census data are now available. Part of the answer lies in the large gap between family incomes of children raised in single-parent households and those living in households with two parents in residence. Children of single mothers are clearly at risk for poverty and all its consequent problems.