On November 19, 2020, the U.S. Child Poverty Action Group and First Focus Campaign for Children sent a letter to Congress signed by over 110 organizations in support of the Child Poverty Reduction Act (S. 4115/H.R. 7419), which would codify a national target to cut child poverty in half in the United States within a decade, as well as direct the National Academy of Sciences to monitor and analyze progress towards the target.
Excerpt from the letter:
No child in the world’s wealthiest nation should go to bed hungry or be deprived of clean air or be without the opportunities that come from having a safe, affordable place to call home.
Yet even before the outbreak of the COVID-19 health emergency, child poverty was a moral crisis in the United States that affected each and every one of us. Our child poverty rate remains consistently higher than that of our peer countries, and children in the United States continue to experience poverty at a rate 54 percent higher than adults. Due to our country’s long history of systemic racism and discrimination, poverty rates for children of color are nearly three times that of white children. Annual child poverty figures from the U.S. Census Bureau underestimate the problem, for families with children living at twice the official poverty threshold still lack enough income to make ends meet.