There is no iron law of poverty that dictates that a household with certain characteristics will be poor. Nonetheless, poverty is much more highly concentrated among some groups than among others. The six characteristics of families that are important for describing who in the United States constitute the poor are whether or not the family is headed by a female, age, the level of education, whether or not the head of the family is working, the race of the household, and geography.
Figure 19.5 shows poverty rates for various groups and for the population as a whole in 2004. What does it tell us?
- A family headed by a female is more than five times as likely to live in poverty as compared to a family with a husband present. This fact contributes to child poverty.
- Children under 18 are about two times more likely to be poor than “middle-aged” (45– 64) persons.
- The less education the adults in the family have, the more likely the family is to be poor. A college education is an almost sure ticket out of poverty; the poverty rate for college graduates is just 3.9%.
- The poverty rate is higher among those who do not work than among those who do. The poverty rate for people who did not work was almost six times the poverty rate of those who worked full time.
- The prevalence of poverty varies by race and ethnicity. Specifically, the poverty rate in 2006 for whites (non-Hispanic origin) was less than half that for Hispanics or of blacks.
- The poverty rate in central cities is higher than in other areas of residence.
The incidence of poverty soars when several of these demographic factors associated with poverty are combined. For example, the poverty rate for families with children that are headed by women who lack a high school education is higher than 50%.
Poverty rates in the United States vary significantly according to a variety of demographic factors. The data are for 2006.
Source: DeNavas-Walt, Carmen, Bernadette D. Proctor, and Jessica Smith, U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P60-233, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage: 2006, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington DC, 2007. Data for age, educational attainment, employment status, and residence generated by authors using Current Population Survey (CPS) Table Creator for the Annual Social and Economic Supplement 2007. (http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/cpstc/cps_table_creator.html)
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