Poverty among children in the US

The definition of poverty is "the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor". More than 16 MILLION children, or 22% of all children in the united states live in families where incomes are below the federal poverty level.The federal poverty level is making $23,550 a year for a family of four, $18,530 for a family of three and $14,710 for a family of two. According to www.nccp.org, on average, families needs an income of about twice that number to cover basic expenses. Once born into poverty, it is hard to escape. Higher levels of parents education decreases the likelihood that the child will live in poor or low income families. However 46% of low income adolescents and 39% of poor adolescents have a parent with some type of college education.The percentage of children in low income families varies substantially by region. 33% (1.4million) in the northeast, 38% (2milion) in the midwest, 44% (4million) in the south, and 43% (2.5million) in the west are the number of children living in poverty. There are many effective ways to end poverty, however, its just a matter of if we are willing to put in the resources… and money. If the united states offered cash benefits to children in poor families, the child poverty rate could be cut by more than halfAccording to calculations using the 2012 Current Population Survey, poor children need $4,800 per year each, on average, to escape poverty. That’s $400 a month for each child.If we issued a $400 monthly payment to each child, and cut tax subsidies for children in  higher-income families, we would cut child poverty from 22 percent to below 10 percent. If one working family member made at least 15,000 guaranteed  along with the 400$ a month child poverty would drop to under 1 percent. That is an incredible difference. Therefore, there are ways to cut the poverty rate, however many may not want to try them because of the money that would be put into trying to make it happen. I think that doing this is a great idea. Eventually, when the families get above the poverty line and do not have to live pay check to pay check they will spend money on other things (like entertainment) and will help stimulate the economy and will end up benefiting everyone.