USA TODAY

Neediest kids live in rich states

By Wendy Koch, from the Web, November 23, 2007

Low-income children who fare the worst in health care, education and family structure live in some of the nation's wealthiest states, including Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware, a study to be released next week reveals.

The report is the first to look at the well-being of low-income children by state, says co-author William O'Hare, demographer and senior fellow at the Kids Count program of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which advocates for needy children and families. The report is based on newly available federal data.

TABLE: State-by-state statistics

"Many states that looked as if they're doing quite well when all children were assessed don't look so good when you assess only low-income children," O'Hare says.

Those states have big cities with pockets of poverty and more households headed by single women, says Ron Haskins, co-director of the Brookings Institution's Center on Children and Families.

The report found:

• States where low-income kids fared best are clustered in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain regions. The top five:  Utah, North Dakota, Idaho, Wyoming and South Dakota.

O'Hare says those states have a greater sense of community and take care of each other.

Haskins says they have more families led by married parents.  He says poverty, a major factor in poor people's well-being, is five times greater in female-headed households than in those with two parents.

• The states that have ranked the lowest for overall child well-being in past surveys — Mississippi and Louisiana — are not at the very bottom for low-income children.  They ranked 41 and 44, respectively, because of how their low-income kids fared.

• Children in low-income families — those below 200% of the poverty level, about $41,000 last year for a family of four — scored lower on 27 of 29 well-being indicators than did higher-income kids.  The only poor children who did as well or better are those who attend religious services weekly and have dinner with their families at least six days a week.

Kids Count has ranked the 50 states on overall child well-being every year since 1990, based on government data that measure a child's physical and mental health, education, team membership, family involvement, family structure, neighborhood and income.

O'Hare says those rankings masked how low-income children fare because states have widely varying percentages of poor children.

He says the new report, based on Census Bureau data, tells their story better.

How low-income children fare

According to a study released by the Annie V. Casey Foundation, low-income children fared the best in Utah.  The study, taken over two years, involved interviews with more than 102,000 households.  The rankings are based on six categories such as children's health, social and emotional well-being and family activities.  Shown with the rankings are the percentage of children in each state who are from low-income households.

Note: District of Columbia not included in report

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