Every year, the Annie E. Casey Foundation releases the Kids Count Data Book, a comprehensive, 50-state look at child welfare. Arkansas made gains in health coverage and education over the last year, but the child poverty rate went up to 29 percent. Those ups and downs are consistent with national trends, but what would it take for Arkansas to climb all the way up to the top? This document shows the numbers Arkansas would have to reach to meet the U.S. average, and to be number one. For example, 200,000 Arkansas children live in poverty. We’d have to lower that number to 89,655 if we wanted to have the lowest child poverty rate in the country.
Read more about the 2014 Kids Count Data Book here.