Poor, Unemployed, and Not on Welfare: The Prevalence of "Disconnected Families" by State

U.S. families living in poverty who survive without either income from a job or from government-sponsored cash assistance are sometimes referred to as “disconnected.” This research brief from Child Trends uses data from the 2011-2012 National Survey of Children’s Health to quantify the population of children living in disconnected families in each state and to describe the extent to which families access other forms of public assistance. Some findings include: 30 percent of all children lived in disconnected families in 2011-2012; the majority of children in disconnected families lived in a household where someone received some form of public assistance, such as Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program; and the amount of children in disconnected families varied widely by State.