Kathryn Edin, Professor of Public Policy and Management at Harvard, and one of the America’s leading poverty researchers, teamed up with Luke Schaefer, Assistant Professor of Social Work at the University of Michigan, to try to determine just how common extreme poverty is in the United States. Their research considering how many households live on $2 a day or less will be published in June in the journal “Social Service Review.” Relying on data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, they estimate the numbers living in extreme poverty in 2011 were:
- 1.65 million households
- 3.55 million children
Put differently, 4.3% or just over 1 in every 25 non-elderly households with children qualify as living in extreme poverty.
So What?
The situation has gone from bad to worse in recent years. No matter how one measures or interprets the data the years between 1996 and 2011 were a time when the percentage of the population qualifying as living in extreme poverty grew significantly. While a great deal of attention has been given to the growing income disparity in our country, very little has been shared widely about the continued growth of those households living on under $2 a day.
- Were you aware of the number of people in America living in extreme poverty?
- How are you involved in helping meet the needs of these households in the present? in advocating for changes that will improve their futures? (How is your congregation, association/network, and denomination involved in both efforts?)