A sobering report released by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) found that out of the top 35 developed nations in the world, the United States comes 2nd to last in childhood poverty.

While many of the Scandinavian and Western European countries (i.e. countries with a robust social safety net) have very low rates of childhood poverty, America only just narrowly beat Romania for the worst. Poverty is a reality for at least 22 percent of American children (and considerably higher by other estimates).

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Before breathing a sigh of relief for at least not being last, let’s take a look at a few of the countries America didn’t manage to do better than.

Spain has been dealing with an absolute disaster of an economy and even six years removed from the global financial crisis continues to see an astonishing 25% unemployment rate. It stands to reason that many of their children would fall below the poverty line. Latvia’s entire GDP is less than that of North Dakota. Yet, they both still manage to keep more of their children out of poverty than the U.S. America continues to rebound from the recession and it’s economy is strong. Despite these positive gains in the economy, […]