Growing gaps in family structure, educational investments, school readiness, test scores, and college entry and completion all make upward economic mobility a more difficult prospect for children born to poor families. Poor children in poor neighborhoods are at an even greater disadvantage. Growing up in an impoverished community doesn’t only affect your lifetime earnings – it can also affect the length of your life. It can even affect the quality of the air you breathe and the water you drink.

Limited income mobility among poor and minority children is often linked to differences in social environment, be it family, peer, school, or neighborhood environment. But income and race are also closely associated to the quality of one’s natural environment. Disparities in exposure to environmental toxins and pollution are more frequently the subject of the natural sciences, but their deep relationship with socioeconomic factors demands greater attention from social scientists. Indeed, a deep body of scientific research shows a strong and persistent relationship between socioeconomic status and exposure to environmental hazards. There is a good case for measuring poverty across multiple dimensions. Perhaps it’s time to start thinking about environmental poverty as an additional dimension of poverty.

The quality of America’s natural environment has greatly improved since the Clean Air Act was expanded and the Environmental Protection Agency established in 1970. Later legislation, like the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act, established quality standards for our nation’s water resources. Thanks to the enforcement of these laws and other efforts to improve or maintain environmental quality, Americans can worry less (for the most part) that their drinking water might catch fire or that the air they breathe contains dangerous levels of particulate matter (though recent rollbacks in environmental regulations might reverse these trends).

As the residents of Flint, Michigan learned, these risks have not disappeared. They are not the only ones exposed to dangerous levels of pollution or toxins. In 2015, nearly one-quarter of Americans were served by water systems that violated some component of the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Low-income and minority households are more likely to live in neighborhoods exposed to higher levels of water and air pollution.

No surprise, levels of concern over drinking water quality are higher among low-income and minority Americans.

Read the full article about environmental justice by Eleanor Krause and Richard V. Reeves at Brookings.