WASHINGTON, D.C. – For the first time in recent history, a majority of the schoolchildren attending the nation’s public schools come from low income families.
According to federal data, just over half of all students attending public schools in the United States are now eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. A majority of students in 21 states are poor, and close to two-thirds of those states are in the South, according to a report released Friday by the Southern Education Foundation.
The pattern was spread across the nation. Half or more of the public schoolchildren in 21 states were eligible to receive free or reduced-price lunches, a benefit available only to families living in poverty or near-poverty in 2013.1 In 19 other states, low income students constituted between 40 percent and 49 percent of the states’ public school enrollment. In other words, very high proportions of low income students were evident in four-fifths of the 50 states in 2013.
While found in large proportions throughout the United States, the numbers of low income students attending public schools in the South and in the West are extraordinarily high. Thirteen of the 21 states with a majority of low income students in 2013 were located in the South, and six of the other 21 states were in the West. Mississippi led the nation with the highest rate: 71 percent, almost three out of every four public school children in Mississippi, were low-income. The nation’s second highest rate was found in New Mexico, where 68 percent of all public school students were low income in 2013. Iowa was listed at 40%.
NIT reported in September that income equality has also become more pronounced in Iowa, with North Central Iowa with the largest gap in the state between the rich and the poor.
