By The Annie E. Casey Foundation, September 2019
All children and youth deserve to live in communities where they can learn, play and grow. When neighborhoods have quality schools, accessible job opportunities, reliable transportation and safe places for recreation, children are better positioned for success in adulthood. Yet millions of children live in high-poverty neighborhoods that lack these critical assets.
Though the number of children living in areas of concentrated poverty *(census tracts with overall poverty rates of 30% or more) fell as the nation recovered from the Great Recession, the total remains far too high: more than 8.5 million, or 12%, of all kids. Moreover, children of color are much more likely than white children to live in high-poverty communities.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 2012 “Data Snapshot on High-Poverty Communities” underscored that living in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty undermines child well-being. Moreover, a 2015 study showed that children under age 13 who moved from low-income neighborhoods to more affluent communities had higher incomes as adults compared to peers who remained in impoverished areas.
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