Wisconsin Sees Increase in Number of Children Living in Poverty

The state trend of the "percent of children in poverty" is disturbing.

Report: Recession hits Marathon County children hard. (Wausau Daily Herald, 9/20/2011).  Sadly, an all-purpose headline:  "Recession hits [your county's name here] children hard".

Excerpt: The number of Marathon County children living in poverty leapt 5 percent in the past decade, forcing families to make increasingly desperate decisions to provide basic necessities.

At the same time, the ragged economy is stretching the resources of social service agencies that provide services for those needy families, often changing the nature of the help those agencies provide.

Those were among the findings of the "Impact of the Recession on Children and Families" report that was presented to a group of about 50 people Tuesday at Northcentral Technical College. Jim Moeser, the deputy director of the Wisconsin Council on Children & Families, offered up a synopsis of the findings of the 2011 Kids Count Data Book, which tracks and analyzes information about the health and well-being of children and families.

The poverty statistics Moeser presented were grim. The proportion of children living in poverty throughout the state increased 42 percent, from 12 percent in 2000 to 17 percent in 2009. In Marathon County, the proportion jumped from 9 percent to 14 percent.