Kids Count 2014: Child Poverty Remains a Concern in Oklahoma

The Annie E. Casey Foundation has been tracking child well-being in their annual KIDS COUNT Data Book for the past 25 years. The data in the 2014 report continues to measure indicators in four domains: 1) Economic Well-being, 2) Education, 3) Health, and 4) Family and Community. The figures are based on data as recent as 2012.

This year, Oklahoma fell to 39^th overall in Child Well-Being in the KIDS COUNT state profiles. Terry Smith, the president and CEO of the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy, was quoted in the Oklahoman as saying

“After a brief improvement in the rankings due to the recession’s impacts on the rest of the nation, Oklahoma has begun to fall again as the overall economy improves.”

Smith went on to say

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KIDS COUNT 2013: Childhood Poverty in Oklahoma

The Annie E. Casey Foundation released their annual KIDS COUNT Data Book this week.  Oklahoma’s profile shows childhood poverty has worsened in recent years. This is worrying because of the potential negative impacts on education, behavior and health. The report details child well-being across the United States by measuring and ranking states in four specific areas: Economic Well-Being, Education, Health, and Family and Community. The numbers serve as important markers because in measuring the well-being of Oklahoma children, they provide feedback to agencies that implement programs designed to address health, education and poverty.

KIDS COUNT estimates 216,000 Oklahoma children, or 23% of our state’s child population, were living in poverty as of 2011. Around 35,136 of Oklahoma kids in poverty are located right here in Tulsa County, according to a 2010 estimate by the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy, which directs Oklahoma KIDS COUNT.  Oklahoma’s 2013 rate is a slight improvement over last year’s data, but childhood poverty is now relatively the same as it was in 2005. And while Oklahoma’s overall Child Well-being rank rose to 36^th overall, up from 40^th last year, both the number of children living in poverty coupled with the lack of significant progress in decreasing this rate is troubling.

The Academic Pediatric Association (APA) task force on childhood poverty recently called it “the most important problem facing children in the United States today.” According to the APA, childhood poverty has been linked to

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The Child Well-Being Index & Oklahoma

Earlier this year, the Foundation for Child Development and Annie E. Casey Foundation released a series of reports on the child well-being index (CWI) for states. Study authors note that national information for child well-being does not help us understand how children are doing, since there is so much state variation and since states have responsibility for so many of the programs that support children and their families.

As is often the case with ranking documents, the news is not good for Oklahoma. In this very broad measure of how children fare (including 25 separate measures), Oklahoma children rank 43rd, with an index value of -0.56. New Jersey children are best off, with an index of 0.85, and New Mexico’s are worst off, with an index of -0.96. Perhaps most disturbing of all, we were in the bottom 10 states on five of the seven “domains” that were measured. Oklahoma’s domain rankings were:

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