NEW ORLEANS – WalletHub, a personal-finance website, reports a baby is born into poverty every 32 seconds and an average of 1,836 new cases of abuse and neglect are confirmed daily in the U.S.
August is Child Support Awareness Month, and WalletHub conducted an in-depth analysis of 2016’s Best & Worst States for Underprivileged Children. The website found Louisiana ranked #49.
WalletHub’s analysts said in order to bring awareness toward the unfortunate plight of many children across the U.S., they compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia based on the pervasiveness of certain “disadvantage” indicators using a data set of 16 key metrics ranging from “infant-mortality rate” to “child food-insecurity rate” to “percentage of maltreated children.”
They found:
Best States for Underprivileged Children:
1 – New Hampshire
2 – New Jersey
3 – Utah
4 – Minnesota
5 – Iowa
6 – Connecticut
7 – Wisconsin
8 – Nebraska
9 – Virginia
10 – North Dakota
Worst States for Underprivileged Children:
42 – Oklahoma
43 – Alabama
44 – Alaska
45 – Nevada
46 – Arizona
47 – Georgia
48 – New Mexico
49 – Louisiana
50 – Mississippi
51 – District of Columbia
WalletHub also ranked Louisiana:
24 – % of Children Without Health Insurance
31 – % of Maltreated Children
39 – Ratio of Children in Renter-Occupied to Owner-Occupied Homes
40 – Child Food-Insecurity Rate
47 – Infant Mortality Rate
48 – % of Children in Single-Parent Families
49 – % of Children in Households with Below-Poverty Income
