The Gulf hurricanes revealed the depth of child poverty in the United States.

Twelve million American children live in poverty, and this number is climbing. The federal government has set the poverty level at $19,350 for a family of four.

• Families receiving an income at or below this level are considered poor.
• Families receiving less than two times the federal poverty level, or $38,700, cannot meet their basic needs and are considered low-income.
• Families taking in less than $9,675 – half the amount of the Federal Poverty Level – live in extreme poverty.

In Mississippi, poor children along the Gulf Coast bore the brunt of the storm. Katrina’s devastation shed light on Mississippi's children, some of the poorest in the nation.

• The basic needs of over half the children in Mississippi (51 percent) are not met.
• Mississippi has the third highest child poverty rate in the country: 24 percent.
• Twelve percent of children live in extreme poverty.

Louisiana's child poverty rates put more children at risk for harm. Before the Hurricane, many children in Louisiana endured various levels of poverty.

• Almost half – 48 percent – of Louisiana children belonged to low-income families.
• Children living at or below the federal poverty line made up 23 percent of the state’s child population – New Orleans alone had a child poverty rate of 38 percent.
• Thirteen percent were extremely poor.

When it comes to education, Katrina’s effects were catastrophic.

• An estimated 372,000 children were displaced from their local schools in Mississippi and Louisiana.
• In Louisiana, an estimated 489 schools were initially closed after Katrina.
• In Mississippi, an estimated 226 schools reported damage and an estimated 40 are severely damaged or beyond repair.

Of the children Katrina affected, the majority were already struggling in school.

• In Louisiana, 51 percent of 4th graders could not read at a basic level. In other words, more than half the children in Louisiana could not achieve “partialmastery of prerequisite knowledge and skills that are fundamental for proficient work at each grade.”
• In Louisiana, 29 percent of children read at basic level, and only 20 percent – 1 in 5 children – possess the literacy skills to advance comfortably from one grade to the next. The rest achieve at best only partial understanding of the reading material they were supposed to have been able to understand, by national standards.
• In Mississippi, 30 percent of school children read at the basic level, and only 19 percent read proficiently.

Nationwide, child poverty is most common in rural areas.

• The child poverty rate among rural states is consistently higher than it is elsewhere in the country.
• More rural children live in southern states like Mississippi and Louisiana than anywhere else in the United States.
• Rural children are more likely to have younger and less educated parents than other children, and younger and less educated parents are more likely to lack the financial means to provide health care, education and basic necessities for their children.

Sources
National Center for Children in Poverty U.S. Department of Education AP interview with U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings Mississippi Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Services

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