Facts and Stats

You might be interested in some facts and statistics about the challenges of the inner-city:

According to George Barna, three-quarters of all adults believe poverty is one of the most serious issues facing the nation. [Barna, George, “Jesus’ Health Care Plan”, The Barna Group, Ltd., September 2009, www.barna.org.]

Yet noted economist Lewis E. Hill observes, “The failure of the American people to invest adequately in the human capital represented by impoverished children is both the most important cause and the most tragic effect of poverty in the United States.” [Hill, Lewis E., “The institutional economics of poverty: an inquiry into the causes and effects of poverty”, Journal of Economic Issues. Association for Evolutionary Economics. 1998. AccessMyLibrary. 17 Nov. 2009 http://www.accessmylibrary.com.]

Nearly 14 million children in the United States – 19% of all children – live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level – $22,050 a year for a family of four. [National Center for Children in Poverty website: www.nccp.org.]

Impoverished parents often don’t have adequate means to make the necessary investment in their children to lift them out of a life of poverty. Thus children living in poverty are likely to have inadequate nutrition, health care and education. [Hill, Lewis E., “The institutional economics of poverty: an inquiry into the causes and effects of poverty”, Journal of Economic Issues. Association for Evolutionary Economics. 1998. AccessMyLibrary. 17 Nov. 2009 http://www.accessmylibrary.com.]

The presence of chronic stressors such as poverty, unemployment or underemployment, limited resources, substandard housing and high crime rates create a “neighborhood disadvantage” that affects a child’s ability to adjust. This type of chronic environmental stress disproportionately affects members of ethnic minority groups, because they are overrepresented in urban communities. [Beth K. Attar, Nancy G. Guerra and Patrick H. Tolan, “Neighborhood Disadvantage, Stressful Life Events and Adjustment in Urban Elementary-School Children,” Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, Vol. 23, 1994.]

Adolescents who have lived in poverty for four years are approximately 75% less likely to graduate from high school than non-poor adolescents. [Greg J. Duncan and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, eds. Consequences of Growing Up Poor. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1997, pp. 388-399.]

Less than 4% of children from the lowest income families graduate from college. [Lavelle, Robert, ed. America’s New War on Poverty. San Francisco: Blackside, Inc., 1995, p. 69.]

Impoverished high school graduates who once found lucrative employment in the manufacturing sector can no longer do so because most manufacturing plants have not only become more automated (requiring higher education), but have also moved out of the central cities beyond the commuting range of inner-city youth. [Holtzer, Harry J. What Employers Want. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1996, pp. 1-70.]

Check back later for more facts and statistics sites references.