A bill pending in the California Legislature sets an ambitious goal of cutting the state's child poverty rate in half by 2039 and also eliminating the number of kids in 'deep poverty' by 2024.
LOS ANGELES — California may be the fifth-largest economy in the world, but poverty is more prevalent among families with children in the state than in the rest of the nation.
Gov. Gavin Newsom's first budget proposal released in January includes more than $500 million next year on programs that target reducing child poverty and much more to address homelessness and the affordable housing shortage. According to the California Budget and Policy Center, nearly one in five children in the state under 18 years old, or nearly 2 million kids, live in poverty, based on the Census Bureau's so-called supplemental poverty measure, which adjusts for regional differences in the cost of housing. By comparison, nearly 14% of all families with children under 18 in the rest of the nation live below the poverty threshold.
The proposed bill to slash child poverty rates in California follows a task force report issued last November that recommended strategies to address the situation. Among the recommendations were more housing for low-income families and expansion of Medi-Cal, the government-funded health care coverage for the poor and those at risk of entering poverty.
In LA County, the poverty rate for children under 3 years old is 19.2% and the state average is 18.7%, according to KidsData. In Merced County in the state's Central Valley, the poverty rate is 43% for children under the age of 3. California has spent more than $21 billion on poverty-focused budget actions since 2012, the task force estimated.
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