Children Faced Increased Economic Insecurity During the Recession

A new report released by the Urban Institute explores the issue of economic insecurity in children’s lives during the Great Recession. According to the research, the share of children living in families with three or more economic insecurity indicators increased from 28% in 2007 to 34% in 2010, suggesting a higher number of children experienced instability in their lives over the course of the Great Recession. Additionally, the authors found that participation in public programs designed to reduce the negative effects of economic insecurity among families also increased from 2007 to 2010. Two indexes were created for this analysis: an economic insecurity index and a social program participation index. Data were collected from the Annual Supplement on Economic Conditions to the March 2008 and 2011 Current Population Survey (CPS), and the Food Security Supplement to the December 2007 and 2010 CPS. The authors used five indicators for the economic insecurity index: economic hardship, employment instability, housing hardship, family structure, and parental health and insurance coverage. Parent’s educational attainment was used as a measure of children’s economic status and the analysis shows that children of parents with low levels of educational attainment are much more likely to face economic insecurity than those with higher levels of educational attainment. In 2007, 65% of children whose parents had no high school diploma had three or more economic insecurity indicators, compared to 3.3% of children whose parents had a master’s degree or higher. By 2010, the share of children whose parents had no high school diploma and had three or more economic security indicators rose to 72%, while it increased to just 5% among children of parents with a master’s degree or higher. There were also large disparities in economic insecurity across race and ethnicity. In 2007, 50% of black children lived in families with three or more indicators of economic insecurity, compared to just 17% of white children. Over the course of the recession, the share of children living in families with three or more indicators of economic insecurity rose across all races with Hispanic children experiencing the largest increase. According to the report, the housing hardship indicator of the economic insecurity index indicates that 37% of children lived in rental homes in 2010, an increase of 4 percentage points from 2007. Children whose parents had high school or some college degree and those whose parents had Associate degrees account for most of this increase. The share of children doubling up, or living in a household with more than one family, increased from 16% in 2007 to 18% in 2010. This increase was largely driven by the increase among Hispanic children. The social program participation index in this study includes four indicators: food assistance, income support, housing or energy assistance, and health insurance coverage. The authors found that 14% of children lived in families which received three or more program benefits in 2007, and this number increased to 20% in 2010. The share of children whose families did not use any social benefit programs decreased from 60% to 51%. These findings indicate that safety net programs were somewhat successful in being responsive to the increasing demands for these programs due to the Great Recession. They also seemed to effectively serve the populations with the greatest need, as children in groups that experienced the greatest increases in economic security also had the greatest increases in the use of social safety net benefits. View Economic Insecurity in Children's Lives: Changes over the Course of the Great Recession at: http://urbn.is/16q9xB3View the report fact sheet at: http://urbn.is/1gcx0gG