THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 20, 1997 TAG: 9702200123
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: 42 lines
Children in big cities are more likely than U.S. children in general to be underweight when born, live in welfare-supported homes and drop out of high school, a children's advocacy group says.
Among the 50 largest cities, the lowest children's poverty rate was in Virginia Beach, with 8 percent.
The highest poverty rates were in Detroit and New Orleans, each with 46 percent, and Miami, 44 percent. The average for the 50 largest cities was 27 percent.
None of the other cities in Hampton Roads was among those profiled.
The poverty figures released Tuesday in the City Kids Count report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation are based on 1990 census data.
Overall, the foundation looked at 10 factors affecting young people, including infant mortality, high school dropout rates, youth unemployment and single-parent households.
While some data used in assembling the report are five or six years old, they still can help policy-makers understand the plight of urban children, foundation spokesman Bill Rust said.
Big-city children were worse off than the national average in all 10 of the categories studied.
Nine percent of big-city children were low-birth weight babies in 1994 compared with 7.2 percent nationwide.
In 1990, dropout rates for urban children aged 16-19 outpaced children nationally 14 percent to 11 percent. Twenty-one percent of city children under 15 were living in homes receiving public aid, compared with 12 percent nationally.
Detroit ranked last in several of the foundation's 10 categories, with 42 percent youth unemployment in 1990, 45 percent of small children living in welfare homes in 1989, and 60 percent of children living in single-parent households in 1990.
Washington ranked last in three categories.
KEYWORDS: POVERTY RATE VIRGINIA BEACH CHILDREN