Poverty and unem­ploy­ment con­tinue to rise in the state of Michi­gan. The effects of the job losses and lack of cash is severely felt by the state’s children.

Kids Count in Michi­gan have pro­duced a sur­vey of chil­dren in poverty in the state, and despite the grow­ing poverty they did find some pos­i­tives. One of the pos­i­tives was the amount of child­hood deaths has decreased. Accord­ing to the report, there were 18.9 deaths per 100,000 chil­dren, that is down from 23.1 in 2000.

From the Detroit News, writer Cather­ine Jun gleaned more data from the report.

More than 40 per­cent of Michi­gan stu­dents were eli­gi­ble and received free or reduced fed­eral lunches in 2008, accord­ing to Kids Count in Michi­gan, a report released by the Michi­gan League of Human Ser­vices. That’s up from 30.7 per­cent in 2001.

Even in Oak­land County, the state’s wealth­i­est county, more chil­dren (age 17 and younger) are falling into poverty: 11 per­cent com­pared with 8.6 per­cent in 2005.
Statewide, one in five chil­dren lives in poverty.

At the same time, many of the pro­grams that serve as a safety net to fam­i­lies are being cut, said Jane Zehnder-Merrell, senior research asso­ciate at the League.
“The ero­sion of eco­nomic secu­rity has a huge impact on kids,” she said.

Poverty is tied to a 16 per­cent increase in con­firmed cases of abuse and neglect since 2000, said Denise Glover, project direc­tor at the Child Care Coor­di­nat­ing Coun­cil of Detroit/Wayne County.

Glover said impov­er­ished par­ents often can­not pro­vide heat in their homes, often viewed as a mea­sure of child neglect. Or they may take out their finan­cial stress on their children.

“Tem­pers flair and the frus­tra­tion lev­els increase,” she said. “Chil­dren become the victims.”

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