Kids Count charts rising poverty

The percentage of children in Kalamazoo County who are on free or reduced-price lunch, eligible for Medicaid and receiving food stamps has grown in recent years.

Some 16.7 percent of the approximately 58,000 children living in the county were living in poverty in 2005, according to Kids Count in Michigan, a report on the well-being of children in the state that was released on Monday. That compares to 12.3 percent in 1999, according to the U.S. Census.

``The rate of children in poverty is much higher than adults,'' said Jane Zehnder-Merrell, senior research associate for the Lansing-based Michigan League for Human Services, which helped assemble the data.

``Economic security is the bedrock of childhood well-being. It affects all other domains.''

According to the Kids Count report, about 36.8 percent of children in Kalamazoo County were receiving free or reduced-price school lunches last school year, up 5.6 percentage points since 1997-98. About 30 percent of children were insured by Medicaid last year -- compared to about 20 percent in 1999 -- meaning their families have incomes below 150 percent of the federal poverty level. And almost 20 percent of children received food stamps last year -- compared to about 10 percent in 2000 -- meaning their families have incomes below 130 percent of the poverty level.

The federal poverty level is an income of $20,000 for a family of four.

Across the state, more children are depending on the government for basic necessities such as food and health care. Nineteen percent of Michigan's children -- more than 513,000 -- last year were fed in part through the federal Food Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, nearly double the 10 percent who were served in 2000.

``I always say there is nothing wrong with our children's brains, but the social issues from which they come are like a great big barrier for them,'' Janice Brown, superintendent of Kalamazoo Public Schools, said during a press conference Monday at the Kalamazoo Regional Chamber of Commerce Building.

Children under age 5 were most likely to receive government-provided food, with one of every four participating, according to the Kids Count study.

The report listed child poverty rates for Berrien County at 30.6 percent and Van Buren County at 25 percent, but the report urged caution when looking at those numbers because of the high statistical margin of error. Calhoun County was listed as having a rate of 20.6 percent, while Allegan had a rate of 9.6 percent.

Sherry Cloud Thomas, executive director of the Kalamazoo County Department of Human Services, said poverty could even be tied to some of the report's more disturbing data about child safety.

The report indicated an increase in abuse and neglect cases in Kalamazoo County.

Some of the increase reflects more diligent investigation of abuse and neglect claims, but it also reflects the ``research showing there is a correlation between economic stress and the numbers of children who are abused and neglected,'' Thomas said.

Those numbers also represent parents who cannot afford adequate child care and thus leave themselves open to charges of neglect, Zehnder-Merrell said.

On a positive note, the study reported a decrease in teen birth rates, to 29.5 percent of live births in 2002-04 from 39.6 percent in 1995-97.

For the first year, the report did not include data on dropout rates, because of concerns about the unreliability of that data. But the report does cover immunization data for toddlers.

``I think the moral of this story -- and that is the word, `moral' -- is that we have to do the right thing,'' Brown said. ``This truly is about how we can as a community do a better job of rounding up and exploring resources on behalf of very, very young children.''