Poor showing for kids

By one ranking, North Carolina has now slipped back into the bottom 10 as a tough place to be a child. Governor Easley's office in response quickly put out the news that the state's rank had been as low as 46th before he took office in early 2001.

So noted. But that sublime fact certainly means little to the estimated 455,000 youngsters living in poverty in this state, a figure that helped push North Carolina to 41st place among the states this year. Last year, this state ranked in 40th place.

The Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation conducts the annual survey, taking into account such factors as family income, health and education, to gauge how states protect youngsters and advance their futures.

To the credit of the Easley administration, North Carolina has improved regularly regarding education. And state government could do little to influence globalization or to mitigate a three-year recession that struck the United States at the turn of the 21st century, siphoning thousands of manufacturing and textile jobs from North Carolina. Just as joblessness is hard on a parent, it's no picnic for the kids.

Still, North Carolina cracked the top half in none of the 10 major indicators of child welfare. The state did post fewer teen pregnancies, and fewer teens reportedly were dropping out of high school. But the poverty statistics are troubling because low income is tied to health ills, inferior educational attainment and later economic instability.

More investment in education is the best long-range strategy for reducing poverty. And another obvious step is to increase the minimum wage, as a pending bill in the legislature would accomplish. Families also could use help with childcare costs. Easley has proposed allocating $20 million to cover almost 3,000 more children. Yet the state has a backlog of 30,000 children waiting for childcare support.

North Carolina will hover at the bottom of the pack when it comes to child well-being until more concentrated attention is paid to the needs of these vulnerable residents.