Today's edition of Insight looks at the state of children in South Carolina. Program host, Bhakti Larry Hough, interviews Bett Williams, Communications Coordinator for the Children's Trust of South Carolina.
South Carolina ranks 43rd overall for child well-being as compared to other states, according to the 2012 KIDS COUNT Data Book. "We've got a lot of work to do in South Carolina in terms of child well-being," Williams, told Bhakti in the latest edition of Insight.
The 2012 Kids Count Data Book, released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation using a revised and expanded list of indicators, gives an in-depth look at the status of children in South Carolina in comparison to the rest of the nation.
Indicators were placed into four domains:
- Economic Well-Being
- Education
- Health
- Family and Community
"With the expanded list of indicators, increasing from 10 to 16, and framed into four domains, the state can better examine and more fully understand what it is doing well for children and where it can do better, Williams said.
South Carolina's highest ranking is under economic well-being with a rank of 34. Of particular concern, is the 23 percent increase in children whose parents lack secure employment and the 13 percent increase in children living in poverty since 2005. This means that one in every four children (278,000) children live in poverty. For a family of four, this equates to a household income of $23,050 or less. Research indicates that on average families need incomes at twice the poverty level ($46,100) to cover normal, expected expenses such as food, housing, childcare, and transportation. In South Carolina, one in every two children lives below this threshold.
The report also gives South Carolina some small rays of hope, especially in education and health, where there is a trend of improvements. There was a 31 percent decrease in children without health insurance, 25 percent decrease in teens who abuse alcohol or drugs, and a 15 percent decrease in the child and teen deaths.
There was also eight percent decrease in the number of children not attending preschool.
The positive numbers are a good sign, Williams said, but they should not give the state a false sense of success because there are far too many children in the state whose futures at risk.
The 2012 KIDS COUNT Data Book with state-by-state rankings and supplemental data is available at http://datacenter.kidscount.org.
