Families on a Fault Line? The Risk of Poverty When a Child Joins the Home

Recent studies document that newborns from different racial, ethnic, and economic groups face vastly different chances of living in poverty.1 For some babies, poverty is simply a result of being born to parents who are poor. But the mathematics of poverty also suggest that expenses associated with a new child may push a low-income family over a threshold—into poverty. In fact, many families live so close to the poverty line that any disruption— a health crisis, a costly car repair, job loss, or adding a child to the family—could push them into poverty. In this piece, we use the addition of a child as an illustrative example of this broader dynamic.