Child Poverty in US among the Highest in the Developed World

One in seven children in America lives in poverty, placing the country among the most affected by this scourge among developed nations, reveal reports released today in Ottawa.

The situation is addressed in an article by the Canadian publication Global Research that builds on a report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which revealed a staggering level of child poverty in the “developed” world.

The U.S., despite being the country with the highest GDP in the world, appears at the end of the list when a number of indicators are taken into account, such as material welfare, education, health and safety, behaviors and risks, housing and the environment. The international document notes that the U.S. ranks 26 among the 29 selected countries, after Greece and just above Lithuania, Latvia and Romania. It notes that in education, Americans occupy 27th place, while in material well-being, they are in 26th place.

In its last section, the research focuses on poverty rates in each country and the relative gap between the average income and children classified as poor, which shows that 36 percent of American children are below the official poverty line.

The study shows that countries with the highest levels of child welfare are the Nordic countries and Western Europe, which still retain the most social reforms among the most developed countries. Such is the case in Finland, which has less than five percent child poverty.

While Barack Obama promoted education in his 2013 State of the Union address, the study by Global Research suggests that it was empty demagoguery. In fact, the White House is leading a historic attack on public education, with hundreds of schools closed and hundreds of thousands of teachers laid off in the last four years, says Global Research. It adds that billions of dollars were given to banks while the government is leading a campaign to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from basic social programs, including Social Security and Medicare.

Facts provided by Census Bureau suggest that 31 states saw increases in the number and percentage of people in poverty between 2008 and 2009.