In 1998, 34.5 million people in the United States were living below the poverty line. Of the total number of people in poverty, 13.5 million were children, 17.6 million were working-age adults, and 3.4 million were ages 65 and older. Almost one-fifth of U.S. children were living below the poverty threshold in 1998, compared with only one-tenth of people 18 and over.
In 1970, nearly one-fourth of older Americans lived in poverty, more than twice the current rate of roughly 10 percent (see figure, upper right). Children, on the other hand, are worse off today than they were 30 years ago, despite a decline in child poverty over the past five years.
Some children are at greater risk of living in poverty than others. In 1998, 40 percent of black children under age 6 lived in poverty, compared with 12 percent of white children, 18 percent of Asian children, and 37 percent of Hispanic children in that age group. As shown in the adjacent figure, children ages 6 to 17 were at a slightly lower risk of living in poverty.
