Each year there are approximately 500,000 kids reported to be in foster care in the United States. Each. Year.
Over 20 years, that’s 10 million kids.
Over 40 years, that’s 20 million kids.
Now, I never liked algebra. I don’t write algorithms. But I do know that some of those 500,000 kids per year are the same kid. I get it. There isn’t a sure fire way to calculate the numbers per year over the last 40 years.
Many kids enter and exit the system in just a few short months of time and are not counted in that number. In 2013, ChildrensRights.org reported 650,000 kids in foster care at some point.
It’s probably safe to stick with that 20 million number over the last 40 years.
How does this compare to the overall population?
- July 2016 – 12.7% of US is counted as African America (41,071,800)
- July 2016 – 17.8% of US is counted as Latin or Hispanic (57,565,200)
- Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States and a Google search for “US Population 2016”
Take the same 323,400,000 number for the 2016 US population found by searching Google and 20 million current and former foster kids, and that comes to 6.18% of the US population.
Are you part of the 6 percent?