Child poverty in America has been slowly declining for the past decade, but in 2019 it fell

off a cliff. That's according to the census's supplemental poverty measurement, which calculates

poverty based on income and government assistance. The child tax credit helped bring those

numbers down even more, cutting child poverty by roughly 30% for six months last year.

But compared to other developed nations, the US is still behind. In 2020, more than four

and ten American children lived in households that struggled to provide the basics.

How do you think about your ABCs if you didn't go to sleep that night because there might

have been gun activity in neighborhood. So you have police sirens around, light shining

up all night long. How do you think about your arithmetic if you haven't had breakfast

that day? But now that goes into your behavior. So now you're acting up because you're hungry.

How does someone as young as that able to explain I haven't eaten today? So because I'm hungry,

I'm now irritated with the simplest forms of anything.

That was Kenneth Hills, chief operating officer at Syracuse Community Connections. That's

a social services organization providing support for predominantly African American low-income

Syracuse residents. We'll hear from him later on in the show, but first we talk about child

poverty nationwide. This episode is part of our series on poverty in America that we're

calling the price of poverty. And when it comes to child poverty, why is America such an

outlier on the world stage? And what could the recent dips in child poverty teach us about

what solutions do and don't work? We'll answer those questions and a lot more after the break.

I'm Jen White. You're listening to the One-A-Podcast where we get to the heart of the story.

Stay tuned, more's on the way.

Let's welcome our first guests. Here to talk about it is Christopher Weimer. He's the director

...