Gongwer News Service reported the following on July 22, 2015:
Michigan Last Among Great Lakes States In Child Well-Being
The 2015 Kids Count data book released Tuesday shows Michigan ranked 33rd overall and last among its fellow Great Lakes states in child well-being, with more children living in poverty in 2013 than in 2008, the last full year of the recession.
The report ranked the state in three other areas: education, where it was 37th; economic, family and community, where it was 29th; and health, where it was 23rd.
The report showed 524,000 children are living in poverty and 751,000 children have parents who lack full-time employment.
The report, released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, also showed one in every two African American children and nearly one in every three Latino children in the state are living in poverty. And those children living in high-poverty neighborhoods - where poverty rates are more than 30 percent - increased, from 14 percent in 2006-10 to 17 percent in 2009-13.
The number of children in single-parent families also increased, from 32 percent in 2008 to 36 percent in 2013, accounting for 767,000 children.
On the education front, from 2011-13, 54 percent (127,000 children) were not attending preschool, compared to 53 percent in 2007-09. The report also shows 69 percent of fourth graders are not proficient in reading.
Some improvements shown in the report include an increase in eighth-grade math proficiency, though only slight. In 2013, 70 percent of eight graders were found to not be proficient, compared to 71 percent in 2007.
On the health side, the state improved in all four categories.
Low birth-weight babies decreased from 8.6 percent in 2008 to 8.2 percent in 2013; children without health insurance decreased from 5 percent in 2008 to 4 percent in 2013, and teens who abuse alcohol and drugs decreased from 8 percent in 2007-08 to 6 percent in 2012-13.
The Michigan League for Public Policy said recent initiatives in the state should help improve some of the education ranking the state saw in the report, but noted that the amount of children in poverty is telling.
"The economic recovery clearly has not reached everyone," Gilda Jacobs, president and CEO of the group, said in a statement. "Michigan's unemployment rate may be at the lowest it's been in the past decade, but many of these new jobs are low-wage and too many families continue to struggle to make ends meet to care for their children. This report proves that Michigan is losing ground while other states prosper and this is not the direction we need to go."
The League recommends a variety of changes to improve child wellbeing in the state, including:
- Investing in two-generation strategies that improve access to opportunities for parents, such as increased funding for adult education and training, which ideally would lead to higher-wage jobs with benefits and regular schedules;
- Continuing a strong investment in education with a particular focus on early childhood initiatives, such as home visitation and Early On;
- Supporting a tax system that includes the state Earned Income Tax Credit, along with making key provisions of the federal EITC and Child Tax Credit permanent before they expire;
- Investing in strategies to reduce the 8.2 percent of Michigan babies born too small, particularly in communities of color; and
- Strengthening the safety net programs that provide temporary relief to families experiencing economic hardship by removing asset limits and truancy policies.