In America, one in four children live in poverty — 2X worse than Australia, Britain and Canada

One surprising stat from Economist Joseph E. Stiglitz in the NY Times:

In America, nearly one in four children lives in poverty; in Spain and Greece, about one in six; in Australia, Britain and Canada, more than one in 10. 

Digging in a bit, I found a UNICEF report that showed more detailed data. The US is the 2nd worst in terms of percentage of children living in poverty — the only industrialized country that's worse is Romania at 25%. 


In the end, the US spends less money on social benefits to the poor (1.1%) than most everyone else— the only OECD countries who spend less as a percentage of GDP are Lithuania, Latvia, Greece and Malta. Canada does a bit more at 1.4%, while Australia is at 2.4% and the UK leads at over 3.6% of GDP. 


During the great depression, the US poverty rate was roughly 32% — so we are off our all time worst, but only by about 10%!
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2 responses
So what will you be doing about it?
I believe the income inequality in America today is one of the country's most serious national security threats. Even though you cite we are 10% off of a previous area, the dynamics (and size) of this economy are very different.