Prior to COVID-19, child poverty rates had reached record lows in U.S.

Before the coronavirus outbreak sent the U.S. economy into a recession, the share of American children living in poverty was on a downward trajectory, reaching record lows across racial and ethnic groups, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.

In 2019, the year with the most recently available data, 14% of children under age 18, or 10.5 million children, were living in poverty, down from 22%, or 16.3 million, in 2010. All major racial and ethnic groups saw declines since 2010, but the greatest...