Census: 23 percent of all Florida children live in poverty

From the Miami Herald's Naked Politics

by Mary Ellen Klas

Here’s a piece of data that missed our radar last week: Nearly one in four Florida children under age 18 live in poverty, higher than the national average and a 1.2 percent increase over the previous year, according to data released last week by the U.S. Census.

Translated in real terms, the national poverty rate is a family of four with an annual income of $22,314.

Between 2009 and 2010, the number of children in poverty in Florida increased 72,160. The total number is 923,963 or 23.5 percent of all children in Florida. The national average is 21.6 percent. Here's the report.

The data also show the depth to which poverty level affects racial and ethnic minorities in Florida. Among blacks, 38.6 percent of all children live in poverty. Among those who list themselves as “other race,” the poverty rate is 36.3 percent. Among those families who report themselves of Hispanic origin, the rate is 28.3 percent.

More than one in five children in the U.S. lived in poverty in 2010, the Census reports. That’s the highest rate since the Census Bureau started measuring through the annual American Community Survey in 2001.
"Children who live in poverty, especially young children, are more likely than their peers to have cognitive and behavioral difficulties, to complete fewer years of education, and, as they grow up, to experience more years of unemployment," the Census said in its report.

Read more: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2011/11/census-23-percent-of-all-florida-children-live-in-poverty.html?mid=535#ixzz1eSn8kMz8