October 2014Vol. 15, No. 92014 KIDS COUNT Data Book
Annie E. Casey's 2014 KIDS COUNT Data Book is now available with national and State data on key indicators of child well-being. The 2014 Data Book is the 25th edition of the annual report and compares 2012 data with data from 2005 to provide a picture of the effect of the recession on the status of children across four domains: economic well-being, education, health, and family and community. The report also looks at data from 1990, when the first Data Book was published, to gain a sense of how changes in technology, public policy, and population demographics have impacted families over the last quarter century.
This year's report reveals that rates of child poverty reflect the overall prosperity in the United States. In 1990, 21 percent of children lived in poverty; by 2000, the rate had dropped to 16 percent. By 2010, after the economic downturn of 2008, the rate had risen to 22 percent. By 2012 (the latest data available), the rate of child poverty was at 23 percent. In addition, data from 2012 indicate that approximately one in every three children lived in families in which no parent had full-time, year-round employment. Other indicators of concern include an increase in the number of children living in single-parent households and the growing numbers of children living in areas of concentrated poverty.
Despite economic conditions, education indicators—such as preschool attendance, reading and math proficiency, and high school graduation rates—improved modestly over prior years. Likewise, progress was evident in child health trends, including improvements in health insurance coverage and declines in infant, child, and teen mortality rates.
The full KIDS COUNT Data Book, along with State child well-being data and charts with State rankings, is available from the KIDS COUNT Data Center website:
