By Karen Yi | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

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NEWARK — Is life better now for Newark kids than it was five years ago? The answer is sort of a mixed bag, according to an annual report that tracks child well-being in the city. The number of kids arrested in the Newark is declining, but chronic absenteeism from school is rising. More city kids have health insurance, but their parents have fewer child care options.

The 2017 Newark Kids Count report, released Thursday, follows trends among the city's 68,000 kids. Here's how they are faring in the city.

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(Courtesy of Advocates for Children of New Jersey)

1. Most Newark kids live in a one-parent household.

About 22,300 households, or 64 percent, are headed by one parent, compared to 31 percent in the state, according to the latest available data from 2015. Nine percent of children in Newark were foreign-born in 2015 versus 5 percent in the state, the report says. Those numbers, the report says, have remained relatively steady over the past five years.

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(Courtesy of Advocates for Children of New Jersey)

2. About 70 percent live in poverty.

The percentage of children under the age of 18 considered low-income remains high, at 70 percent, compared to the state average at 32 percent. The percentage of economically disadvantaged children in Newark has remained largely stagnant since 2011.

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(Star Ledger)

Matt Dowling | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

3. Many kids rely on school, SNAP for food.

About 30,900 students received free or reduced price lunch in the 2016-17 school year, data show. That's a slight increase over the numbers who have received free or reduced lunch over the past five school years. According to the data, the number of city children receiving SNAP benefits, formerly known as food stamps, rose 7 percent from 2012 to 2016.

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(Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

4. More kids have health insurance.

The number of children without health insurance has trended downward since 2011. In 2015, 6.5 percent of children had no insurance in Newark, compared to 3.7 percent in the state. In 2011, 9.6 percent of Newark children were uninsured.

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(Courtesy of Advocates for Children of New Jersey)

5. Fewer children are abused.

In 2015, 664 children in Newark were found with substantiated cases of abuse or neglect, that was slightly down from 2014. However, the number of cases of abuse or neglect reported in the city was up, reaching 5,811 reports in 2015, the report says.

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(Courtesy of Advocate for Children of New Jersey)

6. Child care options are on the decline.

There were fewer licensed day care centers in the city, the data show. In 2012, there were 190 centers; that number was 144 in 2016. Capacity also fell by 11 percent.

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(Michael Mancuso)

7. Student homelessness is up slightly.

In 2015-16 there were 483 homeless student in Newark. That's slightly up from the year prior, when there were 416 homeless students. But, it shows a decrease from the 2013-14 school year, which reported 575 homeless Newark students.

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(Courtesy of Advocates for Children of New Jersey)

8. Fewer teens are getting arrested.

In 2015, 394 teens were arrested. That's a 26 percent drop from 2011, when 533 juveniles were arrested.

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Courtesy Newark Kids Count.

9. Kids continue to miss a lot of school.

As in years past, the report found chronic absenteeism -- missing 10 percent or more of the total number of days of the school year -- to be a big problem for Newark kids. About 23 percent of students in grades K-8 and 48 percent in high school were classified as chronically absent during the 2015-16 school year.

But, graduation rates in Newark continue to rise, hitting 73 percent during the last school year.

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What the numbers mean

Cecilia Zalkind, president and CEO of Advocates for Children of New Jersey, the nonprofit that compiled the report, said there were some encouraging trends among high school graduation rates and child health, but concerns remains.

Poverty rates remain high in the city.

"What's also troubling is the limited child care options for working families," Zalkind said. "With the more than 7,300 Newark children receiving child care subsidies, it's imperative that parents have access to reliable care, without having to worry about missing work or whether their child is well-cared for."

To see the full report visit acnj.org.