SYRACUSE, NY – According to a study conducted by a Syracuse University researcher, New York has the highest rate of child poverty in the industrialized world. Overall, the United States was ranked last among industrialized nations.
While Sweden leads the world with only 2.4 percent child poverty, New York’s child poverty rate stands at 26.3 percent, Timothy Smeeding, a professor of public policy, reports in a book called Child Well-Being, Child Poverty and Child Policy in Modern Nations.
Overall, the United States had a child poverty rate of 20.3 percent, which ranked it last among industrialized nations, Smeeding said.
The best rates in the United States were in the Midwest with North Dakota and South Dakota at 12.3 percent and Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas at 13 percent, he said.
Smeeding said the data in his study for the first time includes benefits and taxes not captured by the “official” Census Bureau poverty statistics, and provides a better measure against other nations.
“Despite high rates of economic growth and improvements in the standard of living industrialized nations … a significant percentage of our children are still living in families that are so poor that normal health and growth are at risk,” Smeeding said.
Forty-five authors in North America, Australia and Europe contributed to the study.
