The Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore, MD, well-respected for its annual KIDS COUNT data book that tracks ten key indicators of child well-being, this year is emphasizing the shortcomings in the data currently available. In a departure from the traditional format, this years data book, released in July 2009, leads off with an analytical essay focusing on the nations data deficit, and the fact that important data are not only outdated but improperly gathered.
The Casey Foundation is particularly critical of federal actions in gathering data on poverty. Perhaps the single most glaring shortfall comes in our efforts to measure poverty, the key performance indicator that rises above all the others in its impact on childrens futures, according to the Foundation. Calling this crucial counting process ¦. seriously wanting, action steps are recommended to increase the quality and quantity of data available.
The federal governments poverty formula, developed in the 1960s and unchanged since that time is thoroughly outdated, state Casey Foundation officials. It calculates the cost of a basic household grocery budget for a given family size and then multiplies it by three, since in the 1960s, families spent about one-third of disposable income on food. Today, however, food takes up roughly one-seventh of net household income. The government poverty formula does not take into account child care, transportation, health care or education costs and makes no allowance for regional differences in the cost-of-living.
In short, concludes the Casey Foundation, our nations so-called poverty measure provides absolutely no gauge of the impact of our major anti-poverty programs on reducing poverty. The Foundation urges a new poverty measure, along the lines of the one developed by the National Academy of Sciences in the 1990s, that takes into account costs related to work, child care, taxes, and out-of-pocket medical expenses, with adjustments for regional differences in living costs. Non-cash benefits would also be counted.
Systems and organizations charged with helping disadvantaged families and communities succeed must capitalize on new opportunities afforded by todays information revolution to bolster their efforts to measure and improve outcomes, said Foundation CEO Douglas Nelson. It is more critical now than ever to have accurate data that show how American families are faring in the current economic downturn and have systems that are equipped to use this information to improve the well-being of those children and families most in need, he concluded. Read more at: http://datacenter.kidscount.org/databook/2009/Default.aspx