AFRICAN AMERICAN AND LATINO FAMILIES FACE HIGH RATES OF HARDSHIP

A range of measures suggest that many black and Latino families face hardship of some type. Between one-fourth and one-third of families with children headed by blacks or by Latino citizens experience overcrowded living conditions, difficulties paying for food, or lack of needed medical care. Hardship rates rise further — to as many as half of black families with children — when additional types of hardship are considered.

These findings come from the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), which will be terminated this year unless Congress provides additional funding in the fiscal year 2007 appropriations bill that provides funding for the Bureau.

Between one-fourth and one-third of black African American families with children (28 percent) experienced at least one of three hardships — overcrowded housing, hunger or the risk of hunger (termed “food insecurity” by the government), or lack of needed medical care — in the 12 months before the survey was conducted in summer 2003.