Child poverty is a solvable problem when there is the political will to address it.
Even before the outbreak of COVID-19, child poverty was a moral and economic crisis in the U.S. that affected each and every one of us. Historically, children in the United States have experienced higher rates of poverty compared to their peers in other industrialized nations due to the lower level of investment in children in the United States.
In response to the ongoing impact of COVID-19 in 2021, significant investments were made for children in the American Rescue Plan, which are already nearly cutting child poverty in half in 2021. Improvements to the Child Tax Credit (CTC) are responsible for much of this impact - reaching families with the greatest level of hardship for the first time in the CTC’s history with increased amounts of cash assistance on a monthly basis. When considering improvements to the CTC and other assistance in the American Rescue Plan, children are projected to have the lowest poverty rates in the nation in 2021.
This shows that us when we have the political will to act, we can reduce child poverty even during a global pandemic. Yet we know more is needed to end child poverty in the United States - it is a long-term problem in need of a long-term solution. End Child Poverty U.S. is a national campaign led by the U.S. Child Poverty Action Group, a partnership of leading anti-poverty organizations. Our goal is to create a national target to end child poverty in the United States, thereby creating the accountability to not only maintain the progress being made through current emergency relief efforts in 2021, but to build upon it.
The time is now to end child poverty in the United States - we hope you will join us.
Our goal is to end child poverty. To do that, we will establish a national target to cut child poverty in half within 10 years and eliminate it within 20 years.
This is a moment that begins a wave of change. A national target will create a mechanism for those advocating on behalf of children to hold the government accountable to making child poverty reduction a priority.
We know we can’t do it alone. It is only through collective action that we can make progress. End Child Poverty U.S. is designed as a resource hub and platform to elevate the voices of those working to end child poverty around the nation.
Child poverty costs the U.S. over $1 trillion a year, representing 5.4 percent of our GDP. Therefore everyone regardless of socioeconomic status–benefits from strategies that lift children out of poverty.