Idaho Ranks In Middle Of Nation For Children’s Well-Being Few Idaho Kids Living In Single-Parent Household

With the well-being of Idaho’s children deteriorating in some ways and improving in others since 1985, a new state-by-state assessment ranks Idaho 25th nationally based on 10 indicators. It ranked 24th last year.

The 1995 Kids Count Data Book from the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Washington, D.C., ranks Idaho as high as second and as low as 46th on individual indicators of child well-being based on data from 1992, the most recent year available.

Among the better news was that although the percentage of families with children headed by a single parent increased by 9 percent from 1985 to 1992, the 17.7 percent of Idaho children living in single-parent families was the secondlowest in the nation. The 1994 report ranked Idaho fourth.

The rate of Idaho’s unmarried teenagers having children rose 64 percent from 1985 to 1992, compared with a nationwide increase of 44 percent. But the 27.7 births to unmarried teens between the ages of 15 and 19 for every 1,000 females in Idaho remained well below the national rate of 42.5 per 1,000. The new report ranks Idaho fourth nationally, as it has for three years.

The Kids Count Data Book also ranks Idaho 21st in juvenile violent crime arrest rate.

It found that 322 youths 10 to 17 were arrested for violent crimes in 1992 for every 100,000 young people in the state, up from 214 per 100,000 in 1985. That was an increase of 51 percent, but the national rate increased 58 percent during the same period, from 305 arrests per 100,000 youths to 483 per 100,000.

The biggest improvement in conditions for Idaho children was the 17.5 percent living in poverty in 1992 compared with 21.5 percent in 1985. That was a 19-percent improvement and places Idaho at 25th nationally.

The national children-in-poverty rates were 20.8 percent in 1985 and 20.6 percent in 1992.

On the other hand, the report ranks Idaho near the bottom among states in child death rate. Its says 37.2 of every 100,000 children ages 1 through 14 died in 1992, placing Idaho 46th nationally. The national rate was 28.8 deaths per 100,000 children.

In other categories, Idaho ranked:

Ninth in low birth-weight babies at 5.5 percent. The national rate in 1992 was 7.1 percent.

29th in infant mortality rate at 8.8 per 1,000 live births. The national rate was 8.5 percent.

41st in high school dropout rate at 11.4 percent. The national rate was 9.3 percent.