More than 16 million American children currently live in poverty
D espite having immense economic prosperity, the United States has the 4 th highest rate of child poverty amongst the world’s developed countries, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. With a child poverty rate of 21.63% the U.S. trails only Turkey, Chile, and Mexico. Mexico has the highest rate of child poverty amongst developed nations with a rate of 25.79%. On November 20, 2012, a FRONTLINE documentary titled Poor Kids premiered on PBS. Poor Kids offers a glimpse of how poor children in America cope with living in poverty. Persistent hunger, stress, and constantly changing living conditions are common challenges that children living in poverty endure on a daily basis. In 2011, more than 16 million children or about 1 in 5 were living in poverty, according to statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau. FRONTLINE and the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) at Columbia University’s Mailman School of P...