Child poverty in the U.S. would be significantly worse if government assistance programs weren’t in place, a new report suggests.
A study released on Wednesday by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, an advocacy group for low-income kids, found that without government support programs — like food assistance, housing subsidies and tax credits — the child poverty rate would swell from 18 percent to 33 percent.
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But the SPM model, which was first introduced by U.S. Census Bureau in 2011, provides a more optimistic look at child poverty in the U.S. The SPM model discovered child poverty has actually declined since 1990, while official measurements by the federal government has reflected no substantial change.
