National report ranks Indiana 32nd for child well-being

In this year’s Kids Count data book compiled by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Indiana ranked only 32nd for overall child well-being.

“While we should be proud of the improvements we are seeing, we must remember that all children in Utah deserve the opportunity to reach their full potential”, says Haven.

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While it’s discouraging to see Tennessee continue to struggle with the issue of poverty, it’s encouraging to see gains being made in education.

Margie Hale, executive director of West Virginia KIDS COUNT, said the state’s 2013 child poverty rate was the highest in more than a decade. Fewer children and teens died, of any cause. That’s up 8 percent from the height of the recession in 2008. After several years performing worse most other states, Indiana, at 7.9 percent, is below the national average. And more children had health insurance coverage.

That’s because its rankings in education (2) and health (6) pull up its far lower score for “economic well-being”, which is 26 nationally.

South Carolina went from ranking 45th to 42nd in children’s overall well-being. According to the Anne E. Casey Foundation’s 2015 KIDS COUNT Data Book, one in five children in the Hoosier State lives in poverty, and 12 percent live in “high poverty” areas. That figure is unchanged from past year.

“Growing up in poverty is one of the greatest threats to a healthy child’s development”, she says. Roughly 713,000 lived in a household where more than 30 percent of pre-tax income was spent on housing.

The gap in school performance between Indiana’s white and Hispanic students improved, according to the Indiana Youth Institute.

Still, there is more work to be done. And 62 percent of the state’s eighth-graders tested below proficient in math. Meanwhile, fewer teens used drugs and alcohol and high school dropout rates declined too. That’s a slight improvement from the 2008 report. That is the state’s highest ranking to date. The parents of 35 percent of children – or 356,000 – lack a secure job, meaning no parent has full-time, year-round employment.