(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - The report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a non-profit child advocacy group, revealed that 14.7 million American children live in families with incomes that are less than USD 21,756 a year.
According to the report, child poverty climbed in 38 states from 2000 to 2009.
Mississippi is identified as the worst-hit state with a 31-percent poverty rate while New Hampshire is reported as the least affected state with an 11-percent rate.
The highest rates of child poverty were witnessed among minority communities such as African-Americans (36 percent), American Indians and Alaskan Natives (35 percent), and Hispanics (31 percent).
Meanwhile, 31 million children live in families that are one or two paychecks away from economic catastrophe, the report says.
Taken together, it means that about 43 percent of American children live in households that are economically insecure.
The Casey Foundation's study also found that between 2007 and 2009, 5.3 million children had to leave their homes due to foreclosure.
The ongoing economic crisis in the United States is America's worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
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