The State of America’s Children 2011

CDF’s State of America’s Children 2011 paints a devastating portrait of childhood across the country. With unemployment, housing foreclosures and hunger still at historically high levels, children’s well-being is in great jeopardy. Children today are our poorest age group. Child poverty increased by almost 10 percent between 2008 and 2009, which was the largest single year increase since data were first collected. As the country struggles to climb out of the recession, our children are falling further behind.

Looking at data across children’s needs in child poverty, family structure, family income, child health, child nutrition, early childhood development, education, child abuse and neglect, juvenile justice and gun violence shows millions of children from birth through the teen years at risk of getting caught in the Cradle to Prison Pipeline crisis at the intersection of race and poverty that threatens the futures of poor children of color across our nation. Black children are facing the worse crisis since slavery, and in many areas, Hispanic and American Indian children are not far behind.