Child Poverty Statistics Hold Firm in South Despite Economic Boom

The percentage of Southern children living in poverty is about the same as it was in 1969, even though most states in the region have robust economies and budget surpluses, the Children’s Defense Fund said Monday.

“Equally disturbing is the fact that the rest of the nation is catching up with the South,” said Marian Wright Edelman, president of the defense fund, a Washington-based nonprofit child advocacy group.

In 1996, the West matched the South in the percentage of poor children, 22.9%--the first time another region equaled the South in child poverty, the group said in a report issued at the beginning of a two-day strategy meeting.

The defense fund placed the poverty line at $12,516 for a family of three and $16,036 for a family of four.

The organization said that in 1996, 5.5 million children living in the 16-state South, including Washington, D.C., were poor and 2.6 million lived in extreme poverty, with incomes of about $120 a week for a family of three.

In 1969, 22.3% of children in families in the South were poor. In 1996, 22.9% of all Southern children--including those in foster care, living on their own or living with a nonrelative adult--were living in poverty.

Nationally, 20.5% of children, or almost 14.5 million, were classified as poor in 1996. That’s up from 14% in 1969.