Even the 'boom' years were so-so for children

That's what the Annie E. Casey Foundation learned in compiling its 20th-annual Kids Count Data Book, which uses the U.S. Census and other government statistics to measure the well-being of American children.

Here's how the Washington Post summed up the findings: "The well-being of American children changed only modestly during the boom years of this decade and undoubtedly has worsened since the onset of the recession."

The rate of children living in poverty was on the rise even before the recession's official onset in December 2007. Unfortunately, that's also where the data trail ended for the Casey Foundation; with no 2008 and 2009 numbers available from the government yet, its report does not reflect the impact of rising unemployment in recent months.

"Our take-away is that even going into the recession, the economic outlook for a lot of families was dire," Kids Count coordinator Laura Beavers told the Post. "There was a flattening of the median income, and the poverty level was creeping up year after year."

"The poverty rate for children remains between 17 and 19 percent thus far this decade-–the rate of 18 percent in 2007 means 900,000 more children were living in poverty nationally than in 2000," Beavers said in a Kids Count press release.

In addition, she said, the teen birth rate is trending upward after more than a decade of steady decline. Although still below the rate in 2000, the teen birth rate increased from 40 to 42 births per 1,000 females ages 15-19 between 2005 and 2006.

The teen birth rate is one of 10 key indicators the Casey Foundation used for Kids Count. Looking across all of the indicators, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Utah ranked the highest; Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi ranked the lowest.

How did Connecticut do? It was one of five states with the biggest improvement in their rankings between 1999-2000 and 2006-07, the others being New York, Maryland, North Carolina, and Illinois.

Connecticut report

Kids Count Data Center

Annie E. Casey Foundation