More than 36 percent of all Michigan children younger than age 18 were living in a household in 2009 where no parent had full-time, year-round employment, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation's annual Kids Count Data Book released today. That compares with 31 percent of children nationally.



The report also found that 12 percent or 281,000 children in Michigan had at least one unemployed parent in 2010 compared with 11 percent nationally. And 5 percent of Michigan kids were affected by foreclosures since 2007, compared with 4 percent nationally.



"This report shows with startling clarity how deeply the recession has affected families across Michigan,'' said Jane Zehnder-Merrell, director of the Kids Count in Michigan project at the Michigan League for Human Services. "Unemployment and foreclosures are adult issues but ones that dramatically affect kids, too. These economic stressors place children at much higher risk of worsening health and education outcomes."



Some 23 percent of Michigan children lived in poverty last year -- with poverty calculated as two adults and two children living on $21,756 or less, up 64 percent since 2000.



There was some encouraging news in the report. The percent of teens, ages 16 to 19, who were not in school and not high school graduates declined from 10 percent in 2000 to 6 percent in 2009, a 40 percent decrease. The teen birth rate among girls 15 to 19 slid from 40 births per thousand to 33 births per thousand, an 18 percent decline. That compares with a national average of 41 births per 1,000 teens.









