Black children in Michigan are struggling, according to a new report on child well-being.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s new Race for Results report measured well-being based on data on education, health, early childhood and other metrics.
Anne Kuhnen, the Michigan Kids Count director, said the report finds all children are facing challenges, but the burden is not equal.
“This is particularly acute for Black children who not only have the worst outcomes of any racial or ethnic group of children in Michigan, but are also performing worse than their peers nationally in every metric measured in this report,” said Kuhnen.
The Race for Results index "standardizes scores across 12 indicators that represent well-being milestones from cradle to career," the Michigan League for Public Policy said, "converting them into a scale ranging from 0 to 1,000 to make it easy to compare and see differences across states and racial and ethnic groups."
The index's indicators are grouped into four areas: early childhood, education and early work experiences, family resources, and neighborhood context.
Michigan’s overall scores by race were as follows:
- Black: 268
- American Indian/Alaska Native: 565
- Asian and Pacific Islander: 800
- Latino: 479
- White: 660
- Two or More Races: 515
Kuhnen said the report also found wide differences along racial and ethnic lines in Wisconsin, Illinois and Ohio.
She said policymakers should pursue programs aimed at closing well-being gaps for young people of color. She said expanded federal child and earned income tax credits would be helpful.
