Children raised in impoverished environments are at higher risk for a wide variety of health and social problems, including poor performance in school. The challenges they face in childhood can diminish their chances for successful adult lives. Studies have found that the stress of living in poverty can cause biological changes in children that can lead to long-term health problems.

In 2015-19, 24% of children were living in poverty, up 2 percentage points from 2000 and higher than the national rate of 19%. This makes Arkansas 45th in the nation on this indicator, including the 50 states and Washington, D.C. Rates varied greatly among racial and ethnic groups, with 42% of black or African American and 33% of Hispanic children in poverty, compared to 18% of white children. Since 2000, the largest increase among the biggest groups was a 3 percentage-point jump for white children. Among counties in the state, child poverty rates ranged from 13% in Saline and Benton counties to 56% in Phillips. An equal percentage of male and female children are in poverty.

The unequal access to economic opportunity experienced by Black, Latino and other racial and ethnic groups has led to higher rates of child poverty within these groups. Relevant factors include: living in a single-parent household, especially if the single parent is female; having parent(s) who are unemployed, employed and/or underemployed in low-wage jobs or incarcerated; and living in communities that have experienced disinvestment and have ineffective and/or under-resourced schools.

Poverty status is not reported for people in institutions, including college dormitories and military barracks, and people in living situations without conventional housing.

The multiyear figures are from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. The bureau combined 5 years of responses to the survey to provide estimates for smaller geographic areas and increase the precision of its estimates. However, because the information came from a survey, the samples responding to the survey were not always large enough to produce reliable results, especially in small geographic areas. CGR has noted on data tables the estimates with relatively large margins of error. Estimates with three asterisks have the largest margins, plus or minus 50% or more of the estimate. Two asterisks mean plus or minus 35%-50%, and one asterisk means plus or minus 20%-35%. For all estimates, the confidence level is 90%, meaning there is 90% probability the true value (if the whole population were surveyed) would be within the margin of error (or confidence interval). The survey provides data on characteristics of the population that used to be collected only during the decennial census. Data for this indicator are released annually in December.