President Reuven Rivlin has reacted to the findings in the 2017 Statistical Yearbook of the Council for the Child by saying "It is very difficult to find out that the picture is bleak and the data are harsh." Referring to the nearly 900,000 children under the poverty line, he said, "Indeed, this is relative poverty whose method of calculation is controversial, but still in such large numbers as this, there are also many real poor, too many."
Rivlin concluded, "Children are our most precious and important national resource - caring for their welfare is a concern for the future of society as a whole, and now our job is to do more for the future of our children, to allocate more resources in money and manpower."