Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Hispanics represent the largest and fastest-growing racial/ethnic minority group among the nation’s children; this group is also disproportionately living in poverty (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014; Lopez & Velasco, 2011), as nearly one third of children growing up in poverty are Hispanic (Murphey, Guzman, & Torres, 2014). Accordingly, many policies and programs are attempting to better serve Hispanic children in need. To realize these efforts, we must better understand the experiences of low-income Hispanic children and families across various domains, including their family and household contexts and the economic circumstances that determine the resources that are available. This paper provides a national portrait of the households of low-income Hispanic children, focusing on the household composition and economic experiences of low-income Hispanic children relative to their non-Hispanic white and black peers. 

The characteristics of the households in which low-income Hispanic children live differ in important ways from those of their non-Hispanic white and black counterparts. Moreover, the households of low-income Hispanic children with at least one foreign-born parent differ from the households of Hispanic children with only U.S.-born parents. We find that among low-income Hispanic children, children of immigrants are more likely to grow up in married households and to live with their biological fathers, reflecting a more stable household composition, compared to their low-income Hispanic peers with only U.S.-born parents. With larger household sizes and smaller residential units, the prevalence of crowded housing for low-income Hispanic children is nearly four times that of low-income white children and twice that of their peers with only U.S.-born parents.

The economic circumstances that Hispanic children face are shaped by family context and household composition. For example, our estimates indicate that over 2.5 million Hispanic children are in deep poverty, and, for this group of children, adult unemployment is clearly a very serious issue: less than half of these children live with an employed adult. Hispanic children in deep poverty are more likely than other low-income Hispanic children to live in a household with more than one family and less likely to live with both biological parents. Additionally, they are less likely to live in a household with any foreign-born members, suggesting that poverty in these families may span multiple generations in the United

Low-income Hispanic children live in households that offer both potential advantages and challenges when compared to the households of other low-income children. The differences in the characteristics of households headed by parents who were born in the United States and those born elsewhere have implications for the resources available to households. These differences are important to understand when developing and administering programs designed to meet the needs of low-income Hispanic children. A first step to better serving children and families in need is to clearly understand their life circumstances. This paper enables a fuller understanding of the lives of low-income Hispanic children, a large and diverse population.