Despite the national decline in child poverty and low-income rates in the United States since the early 1990s, the rates in California have surpassed those of the nation. This report, the first in a new series on child poverty in individual states, provides a demographic profile of California's low-income families, highlighting the high number and rate of low-income children in the state. Data informing the report were obtained from the March Current Populations Surveys conducted annually by the U.S. Bureau on Labor Statistics. The report also presents several facts that challenge stereotypes about these families, such as the large and growing majority of poor children living in working families and the number of poor children living in two-parent families. A major finding of this paper is that almost half of all California's children are immigrants and the large majority of these immigrants are Hispanic. The paper asserts that the high poverty rates among these children require urgent attention in order to promote the healthy growth and development of this large and expanding part of California's next generation. (KB)