Costa Rica Tops Child Poverty Ranking; US Fourth Highest

Some countries have lots of children growing up poor, while others have very few.

A group called the OECD looked at how many children live in poor families across many countries.

It found that Costa Rica had the highest child poverty rate, at 29.6%.

That means nearly three out of every ten children in Costa Rica were growing up poor.

Israel had the second-highest rate, followed by Spain and the United States.

In the US, about one in five children lived in poor households in 2023.

Finland had the lowest rate, at just 4.6%.

The numbers are measured against each country's own average income, so they don't compare rich and poor directly across countries.

High living costs and lots of informal jobs can make families with children more likely to be poor.

The data shows that even wealthy countries can have many children living in poverty.