Report: Child poverty rebounds in Illinois

from The Pantagraph

By Edith Brady-Lunny

BLOOMINGTON — The child poverty rate in Illinois has crept up after years of decline, but McLean County remains below the state average, according to a study released this week by Voices for Illinois Children.

Poverty among Illinois children has increased after seven years of improvement, the report said, noting 16.4 percent of Illinois children lived in poverty in 2005, the last year for which numbers were available. The state rate was reported to be 18.5 percent in 1995, 14.3 percent in 2000 and 15.6 percent in 2003.

In McLean County, the poverty rate dropped from 10.5 percent in 1995 to 7.5 percent in 2000 and then rebounded to 10.1 percent in 2003, the last year for which county data were available, the report said.

Poverty was among a range of health-related topics assessed in the group’s report, “Kids Count 2007: The State of Children’s Health.” The organization also took a county-by-county look at issues ranging from weight and physical activity to rates of injuries, child abuse, teen pregnancies and access to health coverage.

“We hope that local leaders will examine the data in their counties and respond individually to the challenge. There are many things that can be worked on at a community level,” said Jerry Sturmer, the organization’s president.

The report, gave children’s overall health in Illinois a rating of “fair.” More than 83 percent of children in the state received a rating of “good” on their overall health assessment.

While the picture of children’s health shows improvement, areas of concern still exist.

The report indicates that more than half of third-graders suffer from tooth decay, a condition that causes pain that interferes with school work, playing and speaking.

Labeled as critical is the fact that 39 percent of third-graders are overweight and 31 percent of 10- to 17-year-olds carry added pounds, according to the report.

A family of four was considered to be in poverty if they earned less than $18,810 in 2003, according to the report.

DeWitt County differed from the area counties by showing an increase in the poverty over the period. It went from 13.8 percent in 1995 to 14.7 percent in 2003, the report said.

Clinton school Superintendent Jeff Holmes said the poverty figures do not surprise him and likely are higher than those from the federal Census Bureau cited in the Voices for Illinois Children report.

“Our numbers have been fairly stable, based on the number of free and reduced lunches we serve,” said Holmes. He said about 30 percent of the district’s students qualify for the low income lunch program.

McLean County also saw a drop in child abuse and neglect cases in the report, but one local expert cautioned against reading too much into those numbers because of the age of the data.

From 1997 to 2005, the abuse rate per 1,000 children in McLean County ranged from 14.4 in 1997 to a high of 18.8 in 1999 before dropping to 9.8 in 2003 and 12.4 in 2005, according to state statistics cited in the report.

The downward trend in recent years doesn’t reflect what local case workers are seeing, said Billie Larkin, executive director of the Children’s Advocacy Center, which serves abused children in DeWitt, Livingston and McLean Counties.

Last year the center saw 206 children, a record for the agency, said Larkin.

“We can’t afford to let out guard down. We have to be even more vigilant,” she said.

But a higher number of reports should not necessarily be considered a negative development, said Larkin.

“If we’re getting children out of the abuse and into help, we’re doing them a favor,” said Larkin.

Area counties followed a statewide trend that saw an 11 percent reduction in the number of teen pregnancies over the past five years. DeWitt County led with a 38.5 percent reduction from 1999 to 2004.

Holmes credited a focused effort by school officials and a committee of community members for the decrease of births among 15- to 19-year-olds.

McLean County saw a drop of 9.5 percent in teen births over the same time period, according to the report.

The time frames cited in the study varied from topic to topic, based on the availability of data.