Editorial: Poverty drags children down
Friday, June 30th, 2006
By Chris Fitzsimon
John Edwards may get little political traction out of talking about poverty, but the former U.S. senator will find plenty of corroborating evidence, starting right here in his home state of North Carolina.
The percentage of North Carolina children living in poverty has been increasing, according to the Kids Count survey done annually by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. One-fourth of the children in the state under the age of 6 lived below the poverty level in 2004, a 32 percent increase from four years ago, the survey found.
"We’re moving in the wrong direction," said Elizabeth Huggins at Action for Children North Carolina. So is the nation as a whole, but not as rapidly as North Carolina and several other states. Nationwide, the percentage of children living in poverty increased from 17 percent to 18 percent over a four-year period. North Carolina’s rate jumped from 19 to 25 percent, ranking it 41st in the nation. Factoring in all the data by which Kids Count measures child wellbeing — graduation rates, teen-age pregnancy and all the rest — North Carolina landed in the same spot, 41st. (more…)
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