Children raised in impoverished environments are at higher risk for a wide variety of health and social problems, including poor performance in school. The challenges they face in childhood can diminish their chances for successful adult lives.

In 2017-21, 11% of white and 17% of Asian children in the region were living in poverty. By contrast, 34% of Hispanic children and 45% of African American children in the region were living in poverty. While the region's Asian and white children had fairly similar rates of poverty as their statewide and national counterparts, the percentage of African American children in poverty within the region was substantially higher than among those groups in New York State or the nation as a whole. The child poverty rate increased among African American (up 6 points) and white (up 2 points) children from 2000 through 2017-21 but decreased by 5 points for Asian children and 6 points for Hispanic children. In the City of Rochester, 47% of Hispanic and 52% of African American children were living in poverty.

Among African American and Hispanic children, poverty was concentrated in the City of Rochester in 2017-21, with 82% of the region's African American children who are in poverty living in the City, and 61% of Hispanic children. By contrast, white child poverty was more dispersed, with just 21% of poor children who are white living in the City.

As people of color have historically and contemporaneously been locked out of economic opportunity in many ways, poverty crosses generations, and child poverty rates are higher. Factors include: living in a single-parent household, especially if the single parent is female; having parent(s) who are unemployed, employed and/or underemployed in low-wage jobs or incarcerated; and living in communities that have experienced disinvestment and have ineffective and/or under-resourced schools.

The multi-year figures are from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. The bureau combined five years of responses to the survey to provide estimates for smaller geographic areas and increase the precision of its estimates. However, because the information came from a survey, the samples responding to the survey were not always large enough to produce reliable results, especially in small geographic areas. CGR has noted on data tables the estimates with relatively large margins of error. Estimates with three asterisks have the largest margins, plus or minus 50% or more of the estimate. Two asterisks mean plus or minus 35%-50%, and one asterisk means plus or minus 20%-35%. For all estimates, the confidence level is 90%, meaning there is 90% probability the true value (if the whole population were surveyed) would be within the margin of error (or confidence interval).

The survey provides data on characteristics of the population that used to be collected only during the decennial census. Poverty status is not reported for people in institutions, including college dormitories and military barracks, and people in living situations without conventional housing. Data for this indicator are expected to be released in the fourth quarter.