According to the 25th annual Kids Count Date book published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, child poverty rates in the U.S. are on the rise.  Good news is that health and education trends are improving and that includes teen pregnancy attaining a historic low.

In the annual Kids Count date book they found that 23% of children in the year 2012 are living in families below the poverty line.

The study considers four factors to judge children's well being, they are as follows:

  1. Economic status
  2. Education
  3. Health and family
  4. Community (How do they judge this for each individual family?)

The study states that with fewer funds being available from government programs like Medicaid or Medicare, along with increased costs for housing and transportation, poorer families are staying poor.

Michigan

The report said 1 in 4 Michigan children were in a poor household in 2012, up from 19% in 2005. Also the number of children living in high-poverty areas rose from 8% in 2000 to 16^ in 2008-12, the survey said.

Good news for Michigan is that the report did find that like the reduced teen pregnancies occurring across the U.S., Michigan did see fewer teen pregnancies.  The Kids Count first report was in 1990 and since then Michigan's teen birth rate has fallen 56% from 59 to 26 births per 1.000.

More From 1240 WJIM AM