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Childhood Hunger |
Poverty
Poverty line = $15,670/year for a family of three or $18,850/year for a family of four in 2004.
- Every 44 seconds a baby is born into poverty.
- In 2002, 12.1 million children (16.7%) of all children under age 18, were poor - a larger percentage than any other age group.
- 4.1 million children experiencing poverty lived in families with at least one full-time,
working adult.
- 6% of children live in extreme poverty with household incomes below 50% of the poverty level ($9425 for a family of 4 in 2004).
- In 2003, PA ranked 28th among states in the percent of children who are poor.
- 14.7% of PA children under age 18 lived below the poverty line in 2000.
- 16.2% of PA children age 5 and under lived below the poverty line in 2000.
- In Allegheny County, 41,339 children (14.9%) lived in poverty in 2000.
- In the City of Pittsburgh, 17,868 children (27.5%) lived in poverty in 2000.
- Every year a PA child spends growing up in poverty will cost an estimated $11,800 in lost
future productivity over his or her working life.
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Hunger and Nutrition
Hunger is the lack of access to sufficient food due to poverty or constrained resources. "At risk of hunger" or "food insecure" refers to the lack of access to enough food to fully meet basic needs at all times due to lack of financial resources.
- Every fourth person standing in a soup kitchen line is a child.
- Children are twice as likely as adults to live in households where someone experiences
hunger.
- More than 40% of low-income children live in households that are hungry or at risk of
hunger.
- Out of 23 industrialized countries, the U.S. was the only country with children under 5 suffering from underweight, wasting, and stunting in 2000.
- Hungry children suffer two to four times as many health problems as those who are not
and are more likely to be ill or absent from school.
- Hungry children are less likely to interact with other people or explore or learn from their
surroundings. Hunger interferes with their ability to learn from an early age.
- Chronic hunger causes anxiety, low self-esteem and hostility in children.
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Federal Food Assistance Programs
The government's responsibility is to provide for those who can't provide for themselves.
- Government nutrition programs can help off-set threats to children's capacity to learn and perform in school, which result from inadequate nutrient intake.
- More than half of all Food Stamp recipients are children.
- Low-income children depend on the School Lunch Program for one-third to one-half of
their daily nutrition.
- 40% of all clients using food banks or pantries are children.
- Each school day an average of 167,000 free and reduced price breakfasts, 46,000 full price
breakfasts, 457,000 free and reduced priced lunches and 581,000 full price lunches are
served to PA students.
- Approximately 345,500 children under 18 receive Food Stamps in PA.
- 32% Food Stamps-eligible households with children in PA did not receive them in 2002.
- More than 12,000 infants and children benefit from the WIC Program in Allegheny County.
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Homelessness
- 40% of homeless people in the U.S. are children. About 1.35 million children, most pre-school and elementary age, will experience homelessness over the course of a year.
- Children without a home are in fair or poor health twice as often as other children, and
have higher rates of asthma, ear infections, stomach problems, and speech problems.
- Many homeless children and youth don't get help from federal and state programs because they move so often.
- About 3,100 children in Allegheny County were homeless in 1999
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Health
- More than 9 million children in the U.S. do not have health insurance.
- In 2002, Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) provided
health insurance coverage for 47.6% of all low-income children (children living in families
with incomes below 200% of the federal poverty line).
- 1 in 5 children have an untreated dental cavity. Children in low-income families are more
than twice as likely to have untreated dental cavities and 20% more likely not to have had a
dental visit in the past year.
- Poor children are twice as likely as non-poor children to suffer stunted growth or lead
poisoning or be kept back in school.
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How to Help
- Join Just Harvest today. Call 412-431-8960 to find out how.
- Contact your Congressperson and urge them to make federal assistance programs more accessible to poor people.
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Sources:Allegheny County Health Department WIC Program, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Bread for the World Institute, Center on Hunger and Poverty, Children's Defense Fund, Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), National Coalition for the Homeless, Pennsylvania Hunger Action Center, Share Our Strength, Urban Institute, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,US Census Bureau, PA Department of Education.
Compiled by the Just Harvest Education Fund
April 2004
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