Nearly half of the nation’s families with young children struggle to make ends meet. A new KIDS COUNT policy report makes the case for creating opportunity for families by addressing the needs of parents and their children simultaneously with a two-generation approach. Creating Opportunity for Families: A Two-Generation Approach describes a new approach to reducing families in poverty, which calls for connecting low-income families with early childhood education, job training and other tools to achieve financial stability and break the cycle of poverty — and recommends ways to help equip parents and children with what they need to thrive.
Find additional resources on two-generation approaches to reducing family poverty.
Low-income families with children age 8 and under face extra barriers that can affect the early years of a child’s development. Parents in these families are more likely than their higher-income peers to lack higher education and employment, to have difficulty speaking English and to be younger than 25.
Many low-income families are headed by a single parent with no more than a high school diploma whose median monthly earnings cover just over half the basic costs of raising children.
Additionally, in half of these families, no parent has full-time, year-round employment. This lack of parental employment varied among states. Alaska, at 64 percent, had the highest rate, while North Dakota had the lowest, at 30 percent. In nearly 80 percent of these families, parents do not have the higher education required for well-paying jobs.
Schools and early-education, home-visiting and job-training programs are just some of the existing platforms that offer opportunities to factor in the needs of parents and children at the same time.
