Yes they do but the situation for children in New Jersey remains bleak at best. The Association for Children of New Jersey released their Kids Count 2008 report. According to the report:
New Jersey children are in some important ways better off than five years ago. More 3- and 4-year-olds are enrolled in high-quality, publicly funded preschool, for example. On some other measures, children are worse off. The proportion with no health insurance has risen, despite increased enrollment in government-subsidized insurance programs.
But the most striking - and troubling - fact evident from the data in this book
is that too little has changed. The rate of child poverty, a contributing factor to
many problems for young people, has not budged. Even as the state’s median
income rose and unemployment dropped, the percentage of children whose parents
lack stable employment and the percentage living below the federal poverty
line stayed about the same. New Jersey families also continue to pay some of the
highest housing costs in the nation: One in four of the state’s renters spent more
than half their income on rent in 2006.
Top read the full report click here. For more information click here.
Tags: Association for Children of New Jersey, Community development, kids count, poverty
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