Poor Kids in a Rich Country

"For twenty years, Lee Rainwater and Timothy Smeeding have developed and enhanced the Luxembourg Income Study to provide comparable data on living standards in industrialized economies. In Poor Kids in a Rich Country, they document that the relative rate of child poverty depends more on how a government regulates the labor market and provides social benefits to those who fare badly in the market than on that country's overall standard of living. They show, that even though average real income in the United States is well-above that of most countries, low-income American children have fewer material resources than their counterparts in ten of fourteen comparison countries. Poor Kids in a Rich Country is the best source for detailed information on variations in living standards across industrialized countries; it should be read by anyone interested in understanding how income poverty is measured and how differences can be interpreted."
-SHELDON DANZIGER, Henry J. Meyer Collegiate Professor of Public Policy, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan

"Poor Kids in a Rich Country easily reaffirms Lee Rainwater's and Timothy Smeeding's reputation as the leading international poverty researchers. With unrelenting scientific rigor, they tackle a great paradox of our times, namely that the world's richest nation produces more child poverty than any other advanced country. The mass of evidence they assemble points to one set of overwhelming and, alas, bleak conclusions. The United States performs badly indeed, with one-fifth of its children living in poverty, and the situation is actually worsening. Equally worrisome is the finding that American children are less likely to escape from poverty. Upon reading this book one begins to wonder whether a country with so many underprivileged children can sustain its economic leadership much further into the future."
-GØSTA ESPING-ANDERSEN, professor of sociology and university dean, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona

"Lee Rainwater and Timothy Smeeding have given us a wonderful gift. Poor Kids in a Rich Country is smart, readable, and attentive to the important questions. Researchers and students of child poverty will long be in their debt."
-SARA MCLANAHAN, professor of sociology and public affairs and director of the Bendheim-Thoman Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, Princeton University

In Poor Kids in a Rich Country, Lee Rainwater and Timothy Smeeding ask what it means to be poor in a prosperous nation - especially for any country's most vulnerable citizens, its children. In comparing the situation of American children in low-income families with their counterparts in fourteen other countries—including Western Europe, Australia, and Canada—they provide a powerful perspective on the dynamics of child poverty in the United States.

Based on the rich data available from the transnational Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), Poor Kids in a Rich Country puts child poverty in the United States in an international context. Rainwater and Smeeding find that while the child poverty rate in most countries has been relatively stable over the past 30 years, child poverty has increased markedly in the United States and Britain—two of the world's wealthiest countries. The book delves into the underlying reasons for this difference, examining the mix of earnings and government transfers, such as child allowances, sickness and maternity benefits, unemployment insurance, and other social assistance programs that go into the income packages available to both single- and dual-parent families in each country. Rainwater and Smeeding call for policies to make it easier for working parents to earn a decent living while raising their children—policies such as parental leave, childcare support, increased income supports for working poor families, and a more socially oriented education policy. They make a convincing argument that our definition of poverty should not be based solely on the official poverty line—that is, the minimum income needed to provide a certain level of consumption—but on the social and economic resources necessary for full participation in society.

Combining a wealth of empirical data on international poverty levels with a thoughtful new analysis of how best to use that data, Poor Kids in a Rich Country will provide an essential tool for researchers and policymakers who make decisions about child and family policy.

LEE RAINWATER is professor emeritus of sociology at Harvard University and research director of the Luxembourg Income Study.

TIMOTHY M. SMEEDING is Maxwell Professor of Public Policy, professor of economics and public administration, and director of the Center for Policy Research at Syracuse University. He is also the director of the Luxembourg Income Study.

An Institute for Research on Poverty Affiliated Book on Poverty and Public Policy