Nevada labeled as one of worst states to raise kids

Wednesday, July 28, 1999 | 10:40 a.m.

STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

Louisiana may be the worst place in the nation to raise a child, according to the Children's Rights Council, an advocacy group based in Washington D.C., but Nevada isn't far behind.

Nevada was ranked 44th by the organization in conditions for raising children. The group promotes continued contact between children and both parents after parents divorce.

The top five states for raising children were in New England, with Maine ranked as the best.

Nevada wasn't alone in its poor ranking. Western states dominated the low end of the list.

California, Arizona, Texas and New Mexico ranked 46th, 47th, 48th and 49th respectively.

Though unemployment is low and the economy high, the children of the West are being left behind, the council said in its fifth annual report, issued Tuesday.

The report used data that included such things as early childhood immunization, child abuse and neglect and the death rate of children.

Statistics were gathered from a variety of state and federal agencies.

According to the report, 1.25 percent of Nevada's children have been investigated for allegations of having been abused or neglected; 27 percent have not been immunized; and 17 percent drop out of school.

The number of Nevada children living in poverty was 14 percent; the death rate for children 0.3 percent; the infant mortality rate 0.62 percent; and the number of those not receiving pre-natal care 23.9 percent, the report said.

Juvenile crime was listed at 0.78 percent, and the teen birth rate at 6.96 percent.

Child advocates in the West say low wages, high growth rates and poverty explain why Western states lag behind the rest of the country.

Elizabeth Hudgins, a senior program assistant at the Children's Action Alliance, an Arizona advocacy group, said Arizona is a low-wage state where 30 percent of all parents have low hourly earnings.

"We're creating a lot of jobs, but they aren't jobs that are paying enough to lift families out of poverty," Hudgins said. "Arizona tends to be very high on child poverty despite the fact that the vast majority of poor families work."

California and Oregon, which was ranked 40th, are seeing a similar trend with poor working families.

David Leslie, the executive director of the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, said a number of people have left welfare rolls because of the state's welfare-to-work program. However, the jobs they're finding are in telemarketing and tourism, jobs which pay less than $10 an hour.

Lois Salisbury, executive director of the California-based advocacy group Children Now, said California's working families are faced with the same problems.

"The conclusion drawn that California is a very tough place to raise kids is certainly validated by a whole range of data, some of it in their report and some of it from a number of other sources," Salisbury said.

The Kids Count coordinator in Utah, Terry Haven, said survey echoes her concern for her state's high teenage birth rates.

"I think the big thing is it's kind of a wake-up call," she said. "How far down do you guys want to go before we take a look at these things?"