New policies will further undermine children’s well-being
Figures released today by the U.S. Census Bureau showed no significant change in child poverty or the number of children without health insurance and prompted conversation around new policies likely to exacerbate both issues.
Child poverty more than doubled between 2021 and 2023, and figures released today by the U.S. Census Bureau showed no statisticallysignificantchange in those numbers. Roughly 13.4% of all U.S. children — or 9.744 million kids — lived in poverty in 2024, according to the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), still far in excess of the 5.2% rate in 2021.
Likewise, the number of children without health insurance remained troublesome and continues to head in the wrong direction, rising to 6.1% of all U.S. children, according to the new census data, or roughly 4.7 million kids. The increase was driven by a decline in the number of children covered by Medicaid and occurs on the cusp of record-level cuts to Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) contained in H.R. 1. The number of children without health insurance also rose the previous year.
“These figures are disappointing but certainly not surprising,” said First Focus on Children President Bruce Lesley. “Congress deliberately let powerful child poverty measures expire, such as the improved Child Tax Credit, and left in place a policy that penalizes children in poverty. And instead of taking positive steps to ensure children’s access to health care — for instance, extending protections for children enrolled in Medicaid or making CHIP permanent — they have actually cut these programs by $1 trillion in H.R. 1. These uninsured figures will only get worse as the provisions of this legislation take hold.”
Today’s census report estimates that the Child Tax Credit reduced the SPM rate for children by 2 percentage points in 2024, lifting 1.5 million of them out of poverty. The report also credits the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which feeds 14 million U.S. children annually, with lifting 1.4 million children above the poverty line.
However, H.R. 1 cuts $200 billion from SNAP and shifts those costs to the states, virtually ensuring that many will end their programs or limit enrollment. The legislation also could take free school meals from 18 million children. Roughly 20% of all children currently experience food insecurity, a figure that likely will climb as a result of H.R. 1.
In addition, the inadequate, poorly structured Child Tax Credit contained in H.R. 1 rises to just $2,200 per child — failing even to keep up with inflation since 2017 — and leaves roughly 19 million children with partial or no credit at all. The National Academy of Sciences and other experts have long recognized a fully refundable and expanded Child Tax Credit as one of the most powerful tools available to fight child poverty, just as it successfully cut child poverty in 2021.