Rural black, Hispanic and children of single mothers more likely to live in poverty

Rural children are more likely to be living in poverty than their urban and suburban counterparts, and black and Hispanic rural children have particularly high poverty rates. A new brief from the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire reveals 55.8 percent of rural black children under six years old and 40.8 percent of rural Hispanic children live in poverty. The national rate is 41 percent for black children and 33.6 percent for Hispanic children. In central cities, 45.3 percent of black children and 37.3 percent of Hispanic children live in poverty.

The brief also examined child poverty levels in relation to family structure, revealing 49.4 percent of rural children living in single-mother households live in poverty. Nationally, 40 percent of children living in single-mother households live in poverty and 43.8 percent in central cities. Regionally, the highest rate of poverty in single-mother households came in the South where 54 percent of those families live in poverty. Just 9.9 percent of rural children living in married-couple households live in poverty, compared to a national average of 7.5 percent and central-city average of 10 percent. (Read more)