Children born to unmarried parents make up an increasing share of American children. But official poverty statistics provide little insight into their economic well-being because these statistics use an outdated definition of the family unit and an incomplete measure of family resources. Using Current Population Survey data and an improved measure of poverty, the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure, we reassess long-term trends in poverty for children in unmarried parent families—those led by single mothers, those led by single fathers, and those led by cohabiting couples—as opposed to their counterparts in married couple families. We find that single-mother families have the highest poverty rates among families, both historically and today, but the improved measure shows much larger declines in single-mother families’ poverty rates over time. Single-father and cohabiting families also have high poverty rates, but those rates have also fallen by approximately one third since the 1960s.

未婚父母所生的孩子在美国儿童中所占的比例越来越大。但是官方的贫困统计数据几乎无法洞察他们的经济状况，因为这些统计数据使用了过时的家庭单位定义和不完整的家庭资源衡量标准。使用当前人口调查数据和改进的贫困衡量标准，即人口普查局的补充贫困衡量标准，我们重新评估了未婚父母家庭儿童的长期贫困趋势 - 由单身母亲带领的孩子，由单身父亲带领的孩子，以及由同居夫妇——而不是他们在已婚夫妇家庭中的同居伴侣。我们发现，无论是历史上还是今天，单亲家庭的贫困率都是最高的，但改进后的衡量标准表明，随着时间的推移，单亲家庭的贫困率下降幅度更大。单亲家庭和同居家庭的贫困率也很高，但自 1960 年代以来，这些贫困率也下降了约三分之一。