In this paper, we examine whether county-level measures of poverty and social
disadvantage are correlated with county-level variation in the black/white foster care
placement gap. The black/white placement gap refers to the fact that when the rate of
placement into foster care for black children is compared to the rate for white children living
in the same area, the black placement rate is almost always higher than the rate for whites.
Although differential exposure to poverty is often used to explain why the placement gap is …