Child Poverty on a Global Scale

American exceptionalism takes many forms. One being the significantly high rates of child poverty present in their society. In America, nearly 11 million children fall below the poverty line. This statistic means 1 in 7 kids live in poverty, making up almost one-third of all people living in America. This number should be unimaginable in one of the world’s wealthiest countries, and yet child poverty has remained stubbornly high for decades. These grim statistics are causing to welcome two proposals to reduce child poverty, one from Joe Biden’s administration, the other from Mitt Romney, a Republican senator. Despite the acknowledgment of the problem, helping poor Americans involves balancing complex trade-offs especially with the status quo worsening, regarding this issue.

Now to illustrate, the more people who receive help, the more money it costs. The solution to this is usually to aid families through sums of money which does the most good per dollar. Yet help that is narrowly targeted at a small group of Americans can easily be dismissed as an aid to the undeserving, eroding the political support it requires. Much of the help poor families receive are present through the form of tax credits, which are confusing and go unclaimed by many of those who are eligible to receive them. As well as this the COVID-19 pandemic has only worsened the matter. Since April 2020, the share of children with at least one unemployed parent has consistently remained above-reported rates during the peak of the Great Recession. More than 4 in 10 children live in a household struggling to meet basic expenses, and between 7 million and 11 million children live in households in which they are unable to eat enough because of the cost. When the pandemic forced schools to shift to distanced and virtual learning, it worsened the barriers to quality education for families on the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum, pushing parents to choose between caregiving and employment.

To improve the currently worsening situation, proposals have been made. Both Biden and Mitt Romney have produced two proposals that target this issue from an economical standpoint. By doing so, they have arranged to provide lump sums of money to families in need on a monthly basis ($350 for Romney's plan and $300 from Biden’s administration). As a result, Americans have created a new system that allows for families on the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum to live a life with the basic necessities and keep them from falling below the poverty line. A similar approach was taken by Canada in 2015 which reduced child poverty rates by 20%. The Biden and Romney proposals both emulate the Canadian approach which has a proven track record. From a political standpoint, Canada is a leading role model for many nations in the formation of policy addressing the issue of child poverty.

Although the eradication of child poverty in America is far from accomplished, this is a step in the right direction with improvement at our fingertips.