The economic risk of childhood in America: Estimating the probability of poverty across the formative years

This article estimates the proportion of children in the United States who will experience poverty at some point during their childhood. These proportions are derived through a set of life tables built from 25 waves of longitudinal data. They represent a fundamentally different approach to studying poverty than either a cross-sectional or poverty spell methodology. Our data indicate that between the ages of 1 year and 17 years, 34% of American children will spend at least 1 year below the poverty line, 40% will experience poverty at the 125% level, and 18% will face extreme poverty (below 50% of the poverty line). A series of bivariate and multivariate life tables reveal that race, family structure, and parental education all have a sizeable impact on the likelihood of experiencing poverty. During the 17 years of childhood, 69% of Black children, 81% of children in nonmarried households, and 63% of children whose head of household had fewer than 12 years of education will be touched by poverty.