H.Res. 1319

119 HRES 1319 IH: Ending child poverty.
 U.S. House of Representatives
 2026-05-21
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 IV  119th CONGRESS  2d Session  H. RES. 1319  IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES   May 21, 2026   Ms. Tlaib  (for herself,  Ms. Jacobs ,  Ms. Norton ,  Mrs. McIver ,  Ms. Wilson of Florida ,  Ms. Morrison ,  Ms. Moore of Wisconsin ,  Ms. Simon , and  Ms. Jayapal ) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the  Committee on Oversight and Government Reform    RESOLUTION
Ending child poverty.
Whereas the United States child poverty rate is more than double that of other wealthy nations;
Whereas there were over 9,744,000 children living in poverty in the United States in 2024, a 154-percent increase from 2021 when there were 3,829,000 children living in poverty;
Whereas Federal investments in child well-being, such as the expanded Child Tax Credit were largely responsible for the record decline in child poverty in 2021;
Whereas the expiration of Federal support pushed 4,000,000 children back into poverty in January 2022, and caused a 12-percent increase in food insecurity;
Whereas the share of total Federal spending on children declined for the fourth straight year in 2025 to 8.57 percent;
Whereas the share of total Federal spending on babies and toddlers in 2025 was a mere 1.59 percent;
Whereas 3.3 percent of children in the United States were living in deep poverty in 2024, nearly double the rate in 2021, in households with incomes of less than $19,000 a year for a family of 4 with 2 children;
Whereas Black, Hispanic, Asian, and American Indian and Alaska Native children experience poverty at a rate roughly 3 times that of White, non-Hispanic children;
Whereas the United States must continue to work to ensure that all eligible families are able to receive the financial assistance that they are owed, including nonfiler families, immigrant families, and families in Puerto Rico;
Whereas the Federal poverty thresholds underestimate poverty in the United States, and families with children with incomes well above Federal poverty thresholds continue to experience material hardship and the inability to afford basic needs;
Whereas young children have the highest rates of poverty, experiencing significant hardship while undergoing critical stages of brain development;
Whereas the United States continues to have a significantly higher rate of child poverty compared to other wealthy nations because the Nation fails to sufficiently invest in children;
Whereas children in immigrant families experience higher rates of poverty than children in nonimmigrant families because they face barriers to accessing antipoverty programs, and increasing both their eligibility and access to benefits would have a significant impact in reducing child poverty;
Whereas children living in Puerto Rico and the other United States territories experience poverty at higher rates than children in the 50 States and District of Columbia because they lack equal access to Federal benefits as part of a long history of racism and discrimination against people living in the territories;
Whereas poverty is linked to material hardship, resulting in children in poverty experiencing hunger and food insecurity, a lack of access to health care, unsafe and unstable shelter, and a lack of other basic needs which lead to children in poverty often having worse physical and mental health, educational, and other outcomes than their wealthier peers;
Whereas children living in poverty and Black and Hispanic children experience higher rates of asthma and lead poisoning compared to their peers due to living in substandard housing and neighborhood conditions that are a product of an environmental legacy of structural racism;
Whereas the National Academy of Sciences finds that when households with children receive cash transfers, parents and caretakers spend it on resources that support their children’s healthy development, leading to improved physical and behavioral health and educational outcomes for their children and leading these children to earn more as adults;
Whereas, as the United States high rate of child poverty has negative implications for not only the outcomes of individual children living in poverty, but also for society as a whole, costing the United States upward of $1,000,000,000,000 a year due to lost economic output, increased health care costs, and more;
Whereas too often families with children unjustly come in contact with the child welfare system due to a lack of sufficient economic supports;
Whereas youth who age out of the foster care system experience higher levels of poverty, criminal justice involvement, and homelessness than their peers;
Whereas households with children with disabilities and special health care needs are more prone to economic hardship, as the annual cost of caring for a child with disabilities can be tens of thousands of dollars;
Whereas poverty is inextricably linked to homelessness, with over 1,370,000 public school students experiencing homelessness in the 2022–2023 school year, a 14-percent increase from the pervious school year, yet these issues are often addressed in separate policy silos;
Whereas the United States invests fewer public dollars in early childhood education and care than almost all other wealthy democracies;
Whereas social spending on children has a bigger return on investment for society than social spending for other ages yet the United States continues to underinvest in children; and
Whereas only 21 out of 100 families with children in poverty receive benefits through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, only 1 in 4 eligible households receive Federal rental assistance, Head Start fails to serve most children who are eligible, and more than 6,000,000 households with children face food insecurity even as recent changes will cause millions to lose Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits: Now, therefore, be it
That the House of Representatives—
(1)
desires that no child should experience poverty in the United States and supports the establishment of a national child poverty reduction target to build the political will needed to make the investments and policy changes that will end child poverty;
(2)
recognizes that every child deserves access to nutritious meals, safe and stable housing, appropriate pediatric health care, clean air and drinking water, and other necessities, and children should not be denied resources because of the color of their skin, their household’s economic status or ZIP Code, their health care status, their gender identity and sexual orientation, or their immigration status;
(3)
supports making permanent investments on the scale of those made in 2021 to the Child Tax Credit, which significantly reduced child poverty and narrowed the poverty gap for Black, Hispanic, and American Indian/Alaska Native children;
(4)
recognizes that the United States underinvests in children and support making additional Federal investments for children, increasing the share of Federal spending on children, and addressing the budgetary structural disadvantages facing children’s programs;
(5)
supports access for all children to high-quality, affordable, and accessible learning opportunities, including mixed delivery systems, within child care, pre-K, Head Start, and Early Head Start in order to benefit children, their families, the early childhood workforce, and the economy;
(6)
guarantees accessible, diverse, safe, high-quality, equitable public education and accessible education infrastructure from pre-K–12 for all children, and protects and expands public resources for students with disabilities; and
(7)
encourages States, territories, and localities to enact policies that follow the direction provided by this resolution.