Study ranks Ohio 27th for child well-being

AMANDA LEE MYERS

Asso­ci­ated Press

CINCINNATI — A new national study has ranked Ohio 27th in the nation when it comes to child well-being and found that the num­ber of chil­dren liv­ing in poverty in the state increased by 4 per­cent­age points amid the recession.

The annual Kids Count sur­vey, pub­lished Wednes­day, found that 624,000 Ohio chil­dren, or 23 per­cent, were liv­ing in poverty in 2010. The national fig­ure was 22 per­cent in 2010, the most recent fig­ures available.

The Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion sur­vey defines poverty as liv­ing in a house­hold with incomes below $22,000 a year for a fam­ily of four.

In 2005, the sur­vey reports that 506,000 Ohio chil­dren, or 19 per­cent, were liv­ing in poverty.

In over­all well-being, Ohio ranked in the mid­dle of the pack among states at No. 27. New Hamp­shire, Mass­a­chu­setts and Ver­mont were ranked high­est in the coun­try, while Nevada, New Mex­ico, and Mis­sis­sippi had the low­est marks.

Laura Speer, asso­ciate direc­tor for pol­icy, reform and data at the foun­da­tion, said that for the most part, Ohio fol­lowed national trends.

“Ohio’s a good mea­sure of what’s going on in the coun­try over­all,” Speer said. “This is evi­dence of the recession’s impact on kids and how impor­tant it is that when deci­sions are made about how to deal with the impacts of the reces­sion, kids and fam­i­lies are taken into con­sid­er­a­tion. It’s not just about business’s bot­tom line.”

The sur­vey also found that the num­ber of chil­dren liv­ing in high-poverty areas in Ohio nearly dou­bled, increas­ing by 5 per­cent­age points to 12 per­cent, or 324,000 children.

Speer said that Ohio strayed from national trends in two areas — the rate of teenagers who give birth and read­ing pro­fi­ciency among fourth-graders.

While both those areas improved nation­ally and in other states, they remained sta­tic in Ohio, accord­ing to the survey.

In terms of edu­ca­tion and health, the sur­vey found that Ohio improved in sev­eral areas. More chil­dren now have health insur­ance, there are fewer child and teen deaths per capita, and there are fewer teens abus­ing alco­hol or drugs, accord­ing to the survey.

Also, more chil­dren are attend­ing preschool, more eighth-graders are pro­fi­cient in math, and more high school stu­dents are grad­u­at­ing on time, accord­ing to the survey.

Posted by AP News on Jul 24 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.