Today the Annie E. Casey Foundation released its twenty-first Kids Count Data Book, which measures the well being of children across all 50 states. The foundation, established in 1948, is a private charitable organization, dedicated to helping build better futures for disadvantaged children in the United States. The primary mission of the Foundation is to foster public policies, human-service reforms, and community supports that more effectively meet the needs of today’s vulnerable children and families. The annual data book is one way to illuminate the needs of children throughout the country, profiling the status of America’s children on a national and state-by-state basis, ranking states on 10 measures of well-being.

The ten measures of well-being used in the survey, along with this year’s results  are:

1. Percent of low birthweight babies: Increased 8% between 2000 and 2008
2. Infant mortality rate: Reduced 3% and is relatively stable
3. Child death rate: Reduced 14% and continues to improve
4. Teen death rate: Reduced 7% and continues to decline
5. Teen birth rate: Reduced 10% and continues to decline
6. Percent of teens not in school and not high school graduates: Big reduction here of 45% (6% compared to 11% in 2000)
7. Percent of teens not attending school and not working: Measured but not compared to previous years due to a change in terminology and methodology.
8. Percent of children living in families where no parent has full-time, year- round employment: Measured but not compared to previous years due to a change in terminology and methodology.
9. Child poverty rate: Increased 6%
10. Perecent of children living in single-parent families: Slight 3% increase

This year’s report shows that strides that were made in improving the lives of America’s children but several items look to have been impacted by the economic downturn. “We won’t be able to assess the full impact of the economic downturn on children and families for a number of years,” said Laura Beavers, national KIDS COUNT coordinator at the Annie E. Casey Foundation. “The economic data that the Census Bureau will release later this year will give a better picture of family economic well-being in the recession. However, even data from 2008 that was collected before the recession took hold shows economic conditions were worsening for kids.”

The best states for America’s youngest citizens were New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Vermont , while Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi ranked the lowest. There were six states with big improvements in their rankings between 2000-2007 (health data) and 2000-2008 (economic data)—New York, Maryland, North Carolina, Illinois, Oregon, and Wyoming. The five states with the biggest drops in their rankings between 2000-2007 and 2000-2008 are Montana, South Dakota, Maine, Alaska, and Hawaii.