RECESSION INCREASES NUMBER OF CHILDREN
LIVING IN LOW-INCOME FAMILIES
~ Millions of Children
Lived With at Least One Unemployed Parent in 2010 ~
August 2011
Baltimore, MD – According
to data being released on Wednesday, August 17, 2011,
by the Annie E. Casey Foundation in its annual KIDS
COUNT Data Book, over the last decade there has been
a significant decline in economic well-being for low
income children and families. The official child poverty
rate, which is a conservative measure of economic hardship,
increased between 2000 and 2009, essentially returning
to the same level as the early 1990s.
This increase means that millions
more children are living below the federal poverty line.
Data also reveals the impact of the job and foreclosure
crisis on children. In 2010, a growing number of children
had at least one unemployed parent and increasing numbers
have been affected by foreclosure since 2007. These
economic challenges greatly hinder the well-being of
families.
The Data Book also provides
the most current information about 10 key measures of
child well- being the Foundation has tracked over the
last twenty years. Since 2000:
Five areas have improved:
the infant mortality rate, child death rate, teen death
rate, and teen birth rate, and the percent of teens
not in school and not high school graduates.
Three areas have worsened:
the percent of babies born low-birthweight, the child
poverty rate and the percent of children living in single-parent
families.
Looking across all child well-being
indicators, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Massachusetts
rank highest, while Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi
rank the lowest. The eight states with the biggest improvements
in their rankings between 2000 and the most recent years
of data are New York, Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts,
North Carolina, Oregon, Virginia and Wyoming. The five
states with the biggest drops in their rankings are
South Dakota, Maine, West Virginia, Hawaii, and Montana.
The Casey Foundation recommends
strategies that can help move low-income families onto
the path for prosperity, including: strengthening and
modernizing unemployment insurance; preserving and strengthening
existing programs that supplement poverty-level wages,
offsetting the high cost of child care, or providing
health insurance coverage for parents and children;
helping families gain financial knowledge and skills;
ensuring that children are developmentally ready to
succeed in school; and promoting reading proficiency
by the end of third grade, among others.
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