The Birmingham News
September 5, 2002

"Shelby Leads Children's List"
State group finds it's best place to grow up
by Kim Chandler
News staff writer

MONTGOMERY – Shelby County provides the best conditions in Alabama for raising children, while counties in the poverty-ridden Black Belt fare worst in an annual study of child welfare indicators.

Jefferson County ranked 39th among the state’s 67 counties.

Counties in the Black Belt, where family incomes are among the lowest in the state, struggle with the highest rates of infant mortality and children on welfare, and the lowest rankings in children’s health. Bullock, Greene, Wilcox, Sumter and Perry counties – all in the Black Belt – ranked lowest in the state.

“The economy is a children’s issue,” said Linda Tilly, executive director of Voices for Alabama’s Children, which released its 2002 Kids Count Data Book on Wednesday.

There are more than 233,000 children living in poverty in Alabama, enough to fill up Legion Field about three times, Tilly said.

Voices, a nonprofit advocacy group, publishes a study each year that considers 18 indicators of child welfare.

Children: Advocate says poverty no excuse.

Worst in terms of children living in poverty was Bullock County, where 44.7 percent of children live in poverty. Best was Shelby County, 7.1 percent of children live in poverty, according to the study.

While poverty correlates with many of the indicators used in the study, such as crime, poverty is not an excuse, said Jim Wrye, the state’s deputy children’s affairs commissioner. Tilly and Wrye said the state could be making more investments in education, quality day care and other programs aimed at lifting people from poverty.

“Education is the way to deal with poverty,” Wrye said. “You can almost look at it as a straight business equation. Right now we’re not making those investments, and we will pay for it in the future,” he said.

Tilly said Alabama could qualify for $10 million more in federal child care development grants by putting up more matching money.

Mike Gibson, a spokesman for the Alabama Department of Human Resources, said Alabama already puts up $10 million to draw about $78 million in federal funds.

Getting more would take additional matching funds from the Legislature, he said, unless people wanted to shift money from areas such as foster care and senior services.

“We draw down all the money we have state money to match. Certainly, it would be nice to have more,” Gibson said.

Similarly, public schools, particularly those in poor counties, are historically underfunded, Till said.

Jefferson ranked 61st among the counties in violent juvenile crime and 53rd in the rate of arrests of juveniles for substance abuse. The state’s most populous county scored its best ranking for health care, coming in fifth for an index of child health. Shelby County ranked first in the state in that category.

Median Family Income

Median family income in top 10 and bottom 10 counties in the 2002 Kids Count Data Book. The state median is $41,657:

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