Children in Working Poor Families
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Headline

The proportion of poor children whose parents make a substantial work effort decreased from 43 percent in 2000 to 40 percent in 2001. This is a reversal of trends during the most recent era of welfare reform when the percentage of poor children in working families rose from 32 percent in 1996 to 43 percent in 2000. (See Figure 1)

Importance

One of the major goals of the 1996 welfare reform law, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), was to move more poor families with children into the labor force.¹ Work can be an important step out of poverty, another important goal of welfare reform. Many low-income working parents and their children, however, remain poor even after meeting the work thresholds used in PRWORA (at least 20 hours per week for a single-parent family and at least 35 hours per week for a two-parent family).

Children in working poor families are substantially less likely to receive TANF or Food Stamps than poor children whose parents do not meet the work threshold. They are about equally likely to be covered by health insurance, a positive change from the mid-1990s when they were less likely to be covered. Working poor families with children are also somewhat more likely to own their homes than other poor families with children, though they lag far behind their nonpoor counterparts in this measure of wealth.²

There is no generally accepted definition of "working poor" even though the term is widely used in discussions of policy. In this indicator, working poor families are defined as families whose income is below the official federal poverty level ($18,104 for a family of four in 2001) and in which either two-parent family members work a total of at least 35 hours per week or a single parent works at least 20 hours per week.

Trends

Between 1995 and 2000, the percentage of poor children living in working poor families rose steadily from 32 percent to 43 percent, before falling to 40 percent in 2001. (See Figure 1) This recent decline happened during a period when child poverty remained constant at 16 percent overall.³ These trends are also evident for children living in single-mother families. (See Table 1)

Among all children (poor and nonpoor), the percent living in working poor families has stayed constant at six to seven percent. (See Table 2)

Differences by Family Structure

Among poor children, those in married-couple families are much more likely to qualify as working poor than those in single-mother families: 61 percent versus 33 percent in 2001. (See Figure 2)

Among all children (poor and nonpoor), however, those in single-parent families are the most likely to qualify as working poor; 12 percent compared to 5 percent among those in two-parent families. (See Table 2) This is because single-parent families are much more likely than two-parent families to be poor in the first place.⁴

Differences by Race and Ethnicity

Among poor children, black non-Hispanic children are less likely than white non-Hispanic, Asian, and Hispanic children to live in working poor families. (See Table 1)

Among all children (poor and nonpoor), Hispanic and black children are the most likely to live in working poor families (12 percent and 9 percent, respectively), followed by Asian children at 5 percent and white non-Hispanic children at 4 percent. (See Table 2)

Differences by Parental Education

Among poor children, those with poorly educated parents (less than 12 years of education) are only modestly less likely to be working poor than those with more educated parents. (See Table 1)

Among all children (poor and nonpoor), those with poorly educated parents are more than three times as likely to be in working poor families as those whose parent(s) have 12 years or more of education (17 percent versus 5 percent). (See Figure 3)

Related Indicators

Poverty, Long-Term Poverty, Secure Parental Employment

State and Local Estimates

2003 state estimates for children (ages 0-17) living in working poor households whose parents are employed full-time with incomes less than 100 percent of the federal poverty level are available through the National Survey for Children's Health at http://nschdata.org/anonymous/Dataquery/DataQuery.aspx?control=5 (Select Family Health and Activities under Child Health Measures)

2003 state-level estimates that use a different definition of working poor (less than 150 percent of the poverty line and at least one parent who worked 50 or more weeks in the previous year) are available from Kids Count at: http://www.aecf.org/kidscount/sld/compare_results.jsp?i=300

International Estimates

None available

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National Goals

None

What Works: Programs and Interventions that May Influence this Indicator

Click here to view examples of programs and interventions that research has evaluated for this indicator. View programs

Research References

¹U.S. Congress, Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, Section 411. http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=104_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ193.104.pdf

²Wertheimer, R., Long, M., and Jager, J. (2002) Children in working poor families: update and extensions. A report to the Foundation for Child Development. Washington, D.C.: Child Trends. http://www.childtrends.org/PDF/WorkingPoorPaper.pdf

³See "Children in poverty," Child Trends DataBank, accessed 2/5/03. http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/indicators/4Poverty.cfm

⁴Ibid.

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Definition

Working poor families are defined as families whose income is below the official federal poverty level ($18,104 for a family of four in 2001) and in which either two-parent family members work a total of at least 35 hours per week or a single parent works at least 20 hours per week.

Data Source

Child Trends analysis of the March Current Population Survey (CPS), 1996-2002.

Raw Data Source

March Current Population Survey (CPS), 1996-2002. For more information on the CPS, see http://www.bls.gov/cps/home.htm

Approximate Date of Next Update

Unknown

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