Children of Incarcerated Parents

the last third of the 20th century child poverty rates among single parent (usually only a
mother) and two-parent families began to surge.
This generally positive history of child poverty in the first two thirds of the 20th century
belies, however, the variability of poverty rates for different subpopulations of children.
Juvenile poverty varied both geographically and by racial subgroups. Despite overall
gains, children of color were far more likely than White children to live in poverty.
Certain regions, especially the south and some urban centers, also experienced high
rates of concentrated poverty.
Many of the causes for the juvenilization of poverty follow highly racialized affect
patterns, meaning children of color are far more likely to suffer from poverty, both in the
United States and internationally. Suzanne Bianchi finds that "between 1960 and 1991,
the proportion of children living in mother-only families increased from 8 percent to 26
percent. The rise among black children living in mother-only families was much more
pronounced than for white children. By 1991, 54 percent of black compared with 17
percent of white children lived only with their mother" (Bianchi 1991).
According to the most recent statistics from the National Center for Children in Poverty
(NCCP) at Columbia University, about 51 million children, or 21% of the juvenile
population of the United States, live "in families with incomes below the federal poverty
level – $22,050 a year for a family of four".
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