Child Poverty Rate Doubles in United States
The child poverty rate in the United States has more than doubled from 5.2 percent in 2021 to 12.4 percent in 2022, according to census data released on September 12. This means the number of children living in poverty shot up from 3.8 million to 9 million in only 12 months.
This steep increase is being attributed to the expiration of the expanded child tax credit, which gave nearly all working families $3,000 to $3,600 per child. Yet while this undoubtedly had ramifications, there is a much bigger, long-term reason for child poverty.
Family breakdown: New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof weighed in on this issue in a September 16 editorial noting that reluctance to discuss family breakdown is contributing to income inequality and child poverty.
American liberals have led the campaign to reduce child poverty since Franklin Roosevelt, and it’s a proud legacy. But we have long had a blind spot. We are often reluctant to acknowledge one of the significant drivers of child poverty—the widespread breakdown of family—for fear that to do so would be patronizing or racist.
Kristof noted that almost 30 percent of American children live with a single parent or no parent at all. Families headed by single mothers are five times likelier to live in poverty than married-couple families. If America could reduce its number of single-parent families, child poverty would decline.
Government build-up: When society gets to a point where the majority of people don’t have a family to support them, people have little choice but to rely on the state.
Family breakdown in America has reached the point where half of Americans receive benefits from one or more government programs. Many leftists love this fact. If you destroy the family as the basic economic unit of society, you create a culture where people are likelier to accept state supremacy. Many liberals turn a blind eye to family breakdown so people will look to the state to provide.
Learn more: Read Herbert W. Armstrong’s Why Marriage—Soon Obsolete?
