The recession was officially over in 2010, but more families struggled to make ends meet and more children lived in poverty - a quarter of children under age six fell below the poverty line last year, the Census Bureau reported this week.

Last year, the country enjoyed its first full year out of the worst recession in decades, but the number of families in poverty rose to 9.2 million, or 11.7 percent in 2010, up from 11.1 million, or 8.8 percent in 2009, according to the new Census analysis. The number of poor children living in poverty was even higher. The number of children under age six living in poverty hit 6.3 million (25.1 percent) last year, compared to 6 million (23.8 percent) in 2009.

Overall, one in five children -- about 15.7 million -- lived below the poverty line in 2010, according to Census. (Check out pages 17 and 18 of the report for data on children and families.) One of the reasons for the increases is that the economy may have grown last year but only barely, and that economic trend unfortunately appears to be continuing this year.

This grim economic situation for young children is both broad and deep. Data for related children under age 6 in families … show that 47 percent of young children live in families with incomes at or below 200 percent of the Federal Poverty threshold. That’s almost half of all young children living in families without enough income to meet their basic needs. -- “The Quiet Crisis: One in Four Infants and Toddlers Lives in Poverty,” Federal Policy Baby Blog, Zero to Three, 9/14/11.

Rising poverty among children and families is a huge issue for those working in early learning. If the nation wants to close the achievement gap and give more kids a better start in early education, one of its first steps has to be dramatically reducing the number of children living in poverty. Many leaders in early education already know this and pointed to the new report as an alarm the nation needs to hear.

It calls for action because if child poverty is trending up today, in a few years, other indicators will trend up as well. More children in poverty today means more teen pregnancies, more high school dropouts and more juvenile offenders tomorrow. It also means we will have more young people desperately trying to enter the workforce without college degrees or even a high school diploma. -- “To Grow the Economy, We Must Pay Attention to Child Poverty,” Danielle Ewen, CLASP, 9/13/11.

Check out the full stories over at Zero to Three and CLASP for more data and ideas.