While the OWS movement celebrated its second month anniversary with marches all over the country, most notably in Manhattan, the U.S. Census Bureau was continuing its march through American poverty statistics. The census quietly released another selection of depressing data related to childhood poverty in America. Their breakdown of child poverty by race notes that in 2010 the poverty rate for caucasion and Asian children fell just below the 22 percent for all U.S. children, but more than 38 percent of all African American children were growing up poor. According to the report, derived from the 2009 and 2010 American Community Study, the poverty rate for Hispanic children was 32.3 percent, and almost 23 percent of children identified with two or more races were living in poverty.
Other lowlights include:
• More than 15 million U.S. children ages 0 to 17 lived in poverty in 2010.
• Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and the District of Columbia had child poverty rates of 25 percent or higher.
• New Hampshire had the lowest child poverty rate at 10.0 percent.
• Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Dakota, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming had child poverty rates from 12.5 to 16.5 percent.
