Rural Hunger

December 23, 2013 - Mike Vetter, food services manager for Central School District, runs a program that offers free meals to students during winter break. He serves the meals out of Henry Hill Elementary School in Independence, Oregon.

(Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian)

According to the 2016 Kids Count Data Book, released today from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Oregon's national rank in overall child well-being dropped three spots, from 29th to 32nd, and more than one in five kids in the state live in poverty.

The Data Book measures child well-being in four areas: economic well-being, education, health, and family and community. In Oregon, children struggle in every one of these areas, but most seriously in the category of economic well-being, where Oregon children rank 41st.

"Oregon families face some of the highest housing costs as a percentage of income," writes the Annie E. Casey Foundation in a release sent out with the report.

"Without a change in the trajectory of the economic lives of our families and the educational success of our students," says Tonia Hunt, executive director of Children First for Oregon, who is quoted in the release, "Oregon's prosperity is at risk.

In education Oregon does slightly better, ranking 34th. Still, that's not great. According to the report, 66 percent of eighth graders are not proficient in math, which is up from 65 percent in 2007. And the number of high school students not graduating on time is 23 percent, which remains the same as in 2007/2008.

There is some good news however: Oregon ranks 23rd in health. Our teen birth rate dropped 44 percent between 2008 and 2014 and the percentage of teens abusing drugs and alcohol fell 33 percent over a similar period.

Oregon is also doing better at making sure kids have healthcare coverage: the percent of children without health insurance fell by over 60 percent since 2008.

It's worth noting for the competitive types that we are losing in child well-being to Washington, which comes it at number 15, and Idaho at number 22, but we are beating number 36 California and number 47 Nevada.

-- Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052

lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker