[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1319 Introduced in House (IH)]
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119th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 1319
Ending child poverty.
_______________________________________________________________________
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
Resolved, 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.
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