Public school poverty is bad. But not this bad.

An otherwise very good MSNBC report on poverty around the nation contains this assertion: "For the first time in more than 50 years, the majority of America's public school children are living in poverty."

Sounds bad. Fortunately, it isn't true. Of the nine in ten children who go to public school, roughly 23 percent live in poverty (to be fair, a very high number by developed world standards), as this Matt Bruenig analysis shows:

The linked report, from the Southern Education Foundation, does find that over half of public school kids are "low-income." This is a more expansive definition, which includes people living up to about twice the poverty line — very troubling to be sure, but not accurate to equate with full poverty.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up