A recent report by the United Nation’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) details the growing levels of poverty facing children in the major capitalist countries.

Compiled with information taken in the final two years of last decade (2009-2010), the report reveals a staggering level of child poverty in the “developed” world, with the standards of living in the United States, which has the highest gross domestic product, ranking near the bottom on all metrics.

Entitled “Child Well-Being in Rich Countries,” the study measures living conditions faced by children in major capitalist countries of North America, Europe, Oceania, and parts of Asia. The countries are ranked by several criteria: material well-being, education, health and safety, behaviors and risks, and housing and environment.

Roughly one in seven children within the United States currently lives in poverty. According to the overall metric, the US ranks 26 out of 29, behind Greece and just above Lithuania, Latvia and Romania. On the education metric, it comes in 27, while on the material well-being metric it comes in at 26.

The report notes that the United States, which has the world’s highest gross domestic product, has remained at the bottom of the list throughout the past decade.

In the areas of material well-being, the report focuses on individual countries’ poverty rates and the relative gap between the median income and children classified as poor. In the United States, the average child in poverty was an estimated 36 percent below the official poverty line, ranking with nations such as Italy and Greece.

The official poverty line is taken to be 50 percent of the median income level of any particular country. This is itself absurdly low, with many families above the poverty line still living in extremely difficult circumstances.

The report briefly outlines the importance of child well-being, stating that “failure to protect and promote the well-being of children is associated with increased risk across a wide range of later-life outcomes… From impaired cognitive development to lower levels of school achievement, from reduced skills and expectations to lower productivity and earnings.”

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