About 7 million of the Nation's children lived in families with annual incomes of $5,000 or more in 1949, according to estimates based on the Current Population Survey, issued today by Roy V. Peel, Director, Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce. In contrast, about 11 million children were in families with incomes under $2,000. The distribution of American children under 18 years old according to the amount of family income is shown below:¹

Table 1.--FAMILIES, AND CHILDREN UNDER 18 YEARS OF AGE, BY FAMILY INCOME, FOR THE UNITED STATES: 1949

One-fourth of the children in the United States lived in families with annual incomes of less than $2,000 in 1949. About 5 million, or less than one-half, of the 11 million children in these lower-income families lived on farms, where cash incomes were frequently supplemented by food and other necessities produced and consumed on the family farm. The remaining 6 million children in these families lived in nonfarm areas where the income of less than $40 a week more closely approximated all that was available for family living.

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¹ This report presents the family characteristics af the 42.3 million children in the United States whose parents were family heads in March 1950. Excluded are 5.5 million children most of whom were in families in which they were not the family head's own children, or lived in institutions.