Data on kids mixed

More Utah children are living in poverty than in years past, and many of their families are hovering close to a major financial disaster, according to a national ranking of children's well-being released today.

That, combined with a sharp increase in the state's child death rate, resulted in a drop from fifth place to ninth nationally in the 2005 KIDS COUNT survey released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The state improved in three of 10 indicators of child well-being, declined in four and remained steady in three.

However, the decline is not as significant as it sounds, considering a change in measures between the 2004 and 2005 reports, said Terry Haven, Utah's KIDS COUNT coordinator. Using the new indicators, Utah also would have ranked ninth in 2004, she said.

But don't rely on the numbers to tell the whole story, Haven said.

"When we look at the rest of the nation, we are doing fairly decent," she said. "But the reality we also have to look at is . . . regardless of how we compare to Maine or Oregon, how are we doing and what do we need to do to help these families succeed?

"We're beginning to see some setbacks in several key areas of child well-being and we need to watch those, see where they're going."

Although Utah ranks fifth best in the nation for the number of children living in poverty, the number increased from 10 to 12 percent between 2000 and 2003. And the ranking falls to 18th when considering the percentage of children living below 200 percent of the poverty level.

"To me that's a wake-up call that we have a lot of children living on the edge, a lot of children living in marginal situations where one disaster is going to throw the family" into a tailspin, Haven said.

In addition to increased poverty, infant mortality rates and child death rates also see an increase in the most recent report, noted William O'Hare, national KIDS COUNT coordinator. The numbers show an overall decline in child well-being since 2000, he said.

"The fact that we lost that momentum that we gained in the 1990s is a cause for concern," O'Hare said. "Even despite that success in the late 1990s, one out of six children in this country is growing up in poverty. That's much higher than any other developed country."

Angie McDougall knows first-hand the difficulties of raising children in a low-income situation. A single mother of four, McDougall spent three months in a shelter before she was able to secure public housing assistance.

Now, for $73 a month, McDougall and her children — ages 9, 8, 4 and 3 — live in a home in the Sugar House area. Without the assistance, which was secured through the help of staff at the Road Home, McDougall said her family would be in much worse shape.