Child Poverty within the Ecology of America’s Families

Abstract

By the end of the 1980s, approximately 20% of America’s children were poor, an increase across the decade of 17% in the national rate of child poverty. Moreover, Phillips and Bridgman (1995, p. 1) note that in 1993 “poverty among American children reached its highest level in 30 years.” Indeed, 22.7% (or 15.7 million) of America’s children were poor in 1993 (Bureau of the Census, 1994). Moreover, as noted in Chapter 1, there was no improvement in the rate of child poverty in America during the latter years of the twentieth century.