New Book Provides Comprehensive Look at the Evolution of Health and Welfare for Families into the 21st Century 4. Research Finds Persistent Racial Disparities in Maternal Mortality Rate 5. This is according to a statistical update released this month by The National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University. With the booming US economy and changes to social welfare programs, the statistics paint what is ostensibly a positive picture in terms of the social welfare of children in America. Nevertheless, as of 1997, 5.2 million young children remain in poverty and an additional 4.7 million children live at near poverty level.
Some groups continue to do substantially worse than others.
This report describes the best determinants of young child poverty and profiles the young poor in terms of who they are, where they live, and their family characteristics. The report also assesses the impact of initiatives designed to aid the poor. The analysis in this report makes it clear that while the market remains strong and bounds and the welfare rolls diminish, there are large segments of the population who are placed at greater risk of living in poverty. Any combination of the determinants of poverty in a child's life will have an additive affect, so children who live in households with one or more risk factors have an exponentially higher likelihood of living in serious poverty than children with fewer risk factors. The authors suggest that programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit can offset the dire circumstances that millions of children and families face each year.