U.S. and Mexico are Worst in Child poverty survey

Nordic countries have the lowest levels of child poverty in the developed world, due in large part to their generous public spending on benefits for families, according to a report released Tuesday by the U.N. Children's Fund. On the other end of the spectrum, the United States and Mexico had the worst rates of child poverty in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development -- a group of the wealthiest countries. Some 40 million to 50 million children in rich countries live in relative poverty, UNICEF estimates. Statistics were available for only 24 of 30 OECD states. The report by UNICEF's Innocenti Research Center in Florence, Italy, based its findings on the number of children growing up in households with an income less than half the national median. Rated the best were Denmark, at 2.4 percent; Finland, at 2.8 percent; Norway, at 3.4 percent, and Sweden, at 4.2 percent. At the bottom end of the table were Mexico, at 27.7 percent, and the United States, at 21.9 percent. The report said U.S. child poverty ''dropped significantly'' in the 1990s, when families benefited from an employment boom and higher wages, but the problem continues.[more]