Over 20 percent of US children ‒ an estimated 16 million youths ‒ are on food stamps, according to the latest government figures. That number has almost doubled since the Great Recession began in 2007. Nearly a quarter are living below the poverty line.
More than one in five of the country’s 73.7 million children now receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits ‒ better known as food stamps ‒ the US Census Bureau announced Wednesday in its annual Families and Living Arrangements table package. Before the economic downturn in December 2007, only one in eight kids ‒ 9 million ‒ were on food stamps.
The US child poverty rate ‒ the percent of children living in households with incomes below 50 percent of the national median income ‒ is 23.1 percent. Only Romania is higher, at 23.6 percent, according to a 2013 UNICEF report.
BYPASS THE CENSORS
Sign up to get unfiltered news delivered straight to your inbox.
You can unsubscribe any time. By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use
There are 14.7 million poor children ‒ of which 6.5 million are considered extremely poor ‒ in the US, according to a new report on child poverty by Children’s Defense Fund, which called the numbers “a national moral disgrace.”
Read More: ‘National moral disgrace’: Over 1 in 5 US children on food stamps & living in poverty
Niamh Harris
Be the first to comment