In the space of a year most infants go from being wide-eyed babies who must be carried with care to children running about on their two feet. But some infants do not survive that first year; in fact, the majority of infant deaths occur within the first week of life.

Michigan has an infant mortality rate higher than most states and persistently higher than the national average. The state’s infant mortality rate for African Americans is triple that of non-Hispanic whites. The latest report from Kids Count in Michigan tracks eight maternal and infant indicators that place babies at risk for infant mortality. To begin to address infant mortality, we must start by reviewing trends in key factors that put babies at risk of an unhealthy birth.

The Right Start in Michigan 2012 report shows how risk varies by geography, race, ethnicity and socio-economic status. It ranks counties on each measure as well as providing an overall ranking. County profiles show the trends between 1998-2000 and 2008-2010, as well as how the county compares with the state average on each measure.

In general, roughly half of the infants who die were born weighing less than five and one-half pounds—the lower the weight, the more the risk. Babies born too small or too soon start life at a disadvantage, and although most survive, they are more susceptible to developmental delays and chronic disease during childhood.

Babies born to African American women suffer double the risk of low-birthweight compared with non-Hispanic white and Hispanic women (14% vs. 7%). Roughly 10,000 babies are born in Michigan each year weighing less than five and one-half pounds.

The percentage of low-birthweight babies increased by 7% in Michigan between 1998-2000 and 2008-2010, and births to unmarried women rose by 22%. Michigan improved on the other three key indicators where trends could be assessed: the percentage of births to teens, repeat births to a teen parent and preterm births.

Right Start data are also available at the KIDS COUNT Data Center for all 69 Michigan cities/townships with population over 25,000.

– Jane Zehnder-Merrell

If your neighbors are struggling, you will feel it, see it in your back yard.

If your family members are struggling, you will feel it, see it at the dinner table.

If your school is struggling, you will feel it, see it on your child’s face.

You get my point. Our fate as community members is linked. We do not live in two separate economies, our economy is interdependent. When communities face hardship, it has a ripple effect. Broad economic prosperity looks and feels good because not only do we enjoy a quality life, so does everyone else around us.

Unfortunately, communities of color have historically faced structural barriers to broad economic prosperity compared to their white counterparts. Past and present policy decisions systematically created these structural inequities, putting the entire economy at risk. It’s too easy to disassociate, assume that there is nothing that can be done around the vast inequities we see, read about, and hear across the state and all over the nation.

Yet, the opposite is true—there is something that can be done. The state budget can level the playing field and create equitable access to opportunity for all Michigan residents. Recent budget cuts, however, have done the opposite.

Targeted policies and programs can increase or decrease racial equity. No one has to be left at the bottom because the economy is not a zero sum game, where if someone wins, another must lose. Everyone can win. Everyone can have equitable access to public structures including a quality education, affordable health care and living wage job opportunities. Equity means providing opportunity that meets people where they are, versus equality, which implies everyone receives the same opportunities the same way.

As noted in the League’s new paper, How the Budget Can Create Economic Opportunity, targeted policy changes to advance equity in the state are imperative to a successful economy. In Michigan, almost a quarter of the state’s population is a person of color. The rate is higher for children, with children of color making up over 31 percent of all children in Michigan. Over the last 10 years, the population of children of Asian descent grew by more than 29 percent and Hispanic and Latino children close to 40 percent. The population of white children declined by more than 14 percent.

Unfortunately, communities of color are disproportionately represented in areas of educational attainment, the uninsured,  infant mortality rates, wealth gaps and unemployment  across economic status.

Take for example:
• In 2010, more than half of African American children under the age of 5 lived in poverty compared with 19.4 percent of white children.
• The infant mortality rate among African American infants is almost triple that of white infants, 15.5 deaths per 1,000 live births compared with 5.4 deaths.
• Children of color make up 31 percent of all children in Michigan, yet accounted for more than 44 percent of children in the foster care system in 2010.
• In 2011, 92 percent of African American fourth-graders in Michigan were not considered proficient in reading compared with 63 percent of white fourth-graders and 52 percent of Asian fourth-graders.
• Michigan currently ranks 2nd highest in African American unemployment among the 50 states.

Yet programs that reduced poverty, offered preventative and reproductive health care, supported children, and provided job training faced budget cuts in FY 12:

• The state Earned Income Tax Credit, an annual refundable credit, was reduced by 70 percent, on average a $294 per family loss for working families. Almost 800,000 families receive this credit every year.
• The Healthy Michigan Fund, which provides several preventive programs, including reproductive health care was cut by $5.9 million.
• The annual back-to-school clothing allowance, providing children with new clothing at the start of the school year, was cut by $10 million.
• Per pupil funding was cut by $300, following a $170 cut in FY 11, for a total reduction of $470 over the two-year period in the FY 12 School Aid Budget.
• JET Plus, a program intended to provide specialized training programs and subsidized employment opportunities, was eliminated and employment and training for participants receiving cash assistance was reduced by $4.8 million in the Department of Human Services FY 12 budget.

Reducing income inequities, health disparities, and closing racial gaps in graduation and achievement all benefit the state by creating a stronger, healthier, more educated workforce, supporting the next generation of leaders—who are increasingly people of color. 

This was best said by the words of Martin Luther King Jr.: “All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”

– Anika Fassia

By 2020, the majority of children in the United States under the age of 18 will be children of color. By 2050, the country will be a majority minority nation, with people of color representing slightly over half of the population.

In Michigan, children of color make up over 31 percent of the state’s child population. Over the last 10 years, the population of children of Asian descent grew by more than 29 percent and Hispanic and Latino children by close to 40 percent. The population of white children  declined by more than 14 percent.

PolicyLink’s annual Equity Summit highlights this very trend, and was held in Detroit this year. With over 2,500 in attendance, professionals from all over the country gathered to share ideas, best practices and data on how equity is a superior growth model. Policymakers need to be educated on the importance of this shift in demographics because without initiatives to advance equity, our economies will continue to falter.

So what does equity mean exactly? How is it different from equality?

Take for example two individuals facing the Capitol steps. One is able-bodied and the other is in a wheelchair. They both have equal access to the entrance, but it’s not equitable. Equity means providing opportunities that meet people where they are, versus equality, which implies everyone receives the same opportunities the same way.

Historically, communities of color have faced barriers to opportunity through structural inequities. This means that these communities have not had equitable access to quality education, affordable healthcare, living wage employment and home ownership compared to their white counterparts. This is proven by their disproportionate representation in educational attainment, the uninsured, infant mortality rates, lower wages, and unemployment.

Without equitable access to the same opportunities as other communities, people of color have significant barriers to overcome. The state can remedy this by working toward advancing equity through targeted policy changes that level the playing field and close opportunity gaps among communities of color.

So how does equity help the economy?

Barriers to a quality education, economic security and affordable health care leave children of color behind. Impediments to success at an early age lead to poorer outcomes as adults. Good health, education, and financial security are the backbone of a strong workforce. Why not give everyone the chance to be successful, contributing community members from the very beginning?

By understanding the role equitable opportunities play in the future of the economy, the state could prosper by providing its residents with the ability to succeed.

As the demographics of our state change, Michigan could better position itself to pave the way for the next generation of leaders. Supporting and implementing equitable opportunities not only leads to a stronger economy, it leads to stronger communities.

– Anika Fassia

As a lifelong Metro Detroiter, it’s heart-breaking to see the latest poverty statistics for our already troubled region.

Among the country’s 50 largest cities, Detroit has the dubious distinction of having the largest share of children living in poverty or in low-income families.
Four out of every five kids in Detroit lived at less than 200 percent of poverty — the level many experts consider necessary to cover the most basic needs, according to KIDS COUNT.

Statewide, one in every four kids lives in poverty. Overall the poverty rate is nearly 17 percent with the rate for African Americans double that – nearly 34 percent.
As troubling as the poverty numbers are, they don’t show the full picture of families struggling to make ends meet. The Census Bureau considers a family of four to be living in poverty if its income is below $22,314, but most studies suggest families need at least twice that to pay their bills.

Today, one in nine workers in Michigan, and one out of 11 nationally, are unemployed. Nationally, 6 million workers –- that’s how many total people live in Wisconsin plus the Upper Peninsula –-  have been out of work for at least six months. These workers have spent their savings and many have exhausted their unemployment benefits.

Poverty and unemployment also have longer term consequences. Unemployed workers lose critical job skills. Poor children’s health and development suffers, and they do worse in school, threatening their ability to become productive workers as adults. Seniors in poverty can’t afford the health care they need to stay strong and independent. 

By 2018, our country will have 3 million fewer new workers with bachelor’s or associate’s degrees than it will need. That limits our capacity for sustained economic growth and harms us all.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We know how to help people through hard times and prepare for a stronger economic future. For example, the availability of public health insurance meant that while the number of people with private health insurance fell this year, the share of Americans who are uninsured did not grow.

President Obama’s jobs package is a step in the right direction to reduce the number of people falling out of the middle class and build a stable, strong economy. Attempts to reduce the deficit through cuts in health care or other essential services are bound to fail because they will reduce jobs, cripple economic activity, and shrink tax revenues.

Right now we face a triple threat. Rising poverty creates more demand for critical services, just when states and the federal government have cut services. Here in Michigan we have already cut education, public safety and safety net programs.  Now Congress is considering additional cuts, which is exactly the wrong choice.
We need our leaders to have the courage to make the right choices. 

A congressional  “supercommittee” is developing a plan to reduce our federal deficit. The surest way to reduce the deficit is to get people back to work and paying taxes. The “supercommittee” should develop a plan that creates jobs and continues unemployment insurance. It should ask millionaires and profit-rich corporations to pay their share in taxes and cut expensive contracts and other waste in our defense budget. 

Our country and our state cannot thrive when so many people are struggling.  We must act now.

– Gilda Z. Jacobs

Historically, canaries were used to detect the levels of any dangerous gas buildups in coal mines, signaling to workers whether it was safe to enter. If the canary was heard singing, work would move forward, if there was silence, you did not enter. The rate of infant mortality is like the canary in the coal mine. It is an overall indicator of the quality of life in an area by telling us the health and well-being of the state’s most vulnerable population—infants. And in Michigan, the canary continues to be silenced.

According to a new League fact sheet, Michigan’s infant mortality rate has been higher than the national average over the last 20 years, at 7.5, as of 2009. The rate is determined by deaths under 1 year of age per 1,000 live births. The measure is associated with maternal health, quality of and access to health care, and socioeconomic conditions. The rate is also being used on the governor’s MiDashboard as an overall indicator of health in the state and is a key indicator for the Michigan Department of Community Health for their statewide health needs assessment.

Risk for infant mortality increases under the following conditions:

• Women living in poverty are far more likely to have preterm and low-birthweight babies.
• Research has connected factors including smoking, low maternal pre-pregnancy weight, single motherhood, socioeconomic status and race to low-birthweight.
• A mother who was a low-birthweight baby herself is four times more likely to have a low-birthweight baby.
• In 2008, almost a third of women in Michigan who gave birth had less than adequate prenatal care, measured by the month care began and the number of prenatal visits.
• More than four of every five Michigan teenagers under the age 18 who gave birth over the decade did not intend nor wish to have a child, increasing the risk of an unhealthy environment for an infant.

Infant mortality is also used to identify health disparities among populations across socioeconomic status and race. The rate among African American mothers has remained triple to that of white mothers over the last 30 years.

With infant mortality being a key indicator for overall health, well-being and disparities across populations, you would think that programs that reduce the risks would be wholeheartedly supported.

Reducing infant mortality rates in Michigan may be on the governor’s MiDashboard, but cuts to programs that target at-risk mothers, such as the elimination of the Department of Human Services’ 0 to 3 Secondary Prevention program, say otherwise. By supporting policies that protect our most vulnerable residents, the closer the state can become to improving the quality of life for everyone. It’s time to see the benefits of protecting our most vulnerable residents during their first days of life instead of bearing the consequences of what happens after they have been silenced. 

– Anika Fassia

Two recent reports starkly present the challenge of demographic trends in the U.S.

The first highlights the rapidly increasing diversity among children in the U.S., and the second focuses on the dropout rates for youth in poor and minority communities in an era when a high school diploma is the minimal standard of education in the job market.

Unfortunately, the implications of these reports are being ignored in budget discussions and decisions.

In 2010, in 10 of the country’s most populous states, including Texas and California, the majority of the child population were minority, and they represented more than 40 percent of the child population in an additonal 23 states, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution. It is now anticipated that “minorities” will be in the majority by 2020.

The report’s author, William H. Frey, sees this growing diversity as a great national asset, but that will only be true if the challenges revealed by another study for the Annie E. Casey Foundation are addressed.

Based on longitudinal survey data, report author Donald Hernandez found that:

• One of every six children not proficient in reading in third grade do not graduate from high school—four times the rate of their peers who were proficient in reading.

• Almost one-quarter (22%) of youth who ever lived in poverty do not graduate from high school compared with 6 percent of those who never experienced poverty.

• The dropout rates for black and Hispanic students who haven’t mastered reading skills in third grade are roughly twice as high as that of their white counterparts.

Hernandez points to three stakeholders to improve these outcomes: schools; family; and federal, state and local policy. Given the profound impact of the early years, maternal well-being, and the concentrations of economic and social disadvantages, the policy environment should be the first step.

As the United Kingdom has demonstrated, national policies can have a substantial impact on reducing child poverty—a condition that has particularly devastating consequences during the earliest years of life—long before these children reach the schoolhouse door.

Family is important, but families exist within communities affected by larger social and economic trends and conditions over which they have limited control. Witness the impact of the recession and the housing collapse on families. Similarly schools with shrinking resources have to cut programs and academic supports that assist the most disadvantaged children to become successful learners.

In the budget battles at the federal level, the programs targeted for cuts are those that disproportionately affect children, particularly the economically disadvantaged, who are disproportionately minority. While these cuts are being touted as necessary to reduce the national debt, the same concern is not voiced when tax cuts are proposed.

Under the U.S. House Budget resolution for 2012, two-thirds of the proposed cuts would come from programs serving low-income people. Proposals to cap programs such as Food Stamps/SNAP could jeopardize the well-being of children and families; roughly half of the SNAP recipients are children under age 18, according to analysis by the Center for Budget & Policy Priorities.

Given the demographic trends, the tough choices are not so difficult. The future of the country is grounded in the health, economic security, and opportunities for the next generation. This future must be weighed against cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans who have benefited the most from the economic growth of the last decade.

– Jane Zehnder-Merrell
 

The U.S. Census Bureau Tuesday released the results of its annual American Community Survey, which surveys approximately 3 million households across the United States. This data reveals a lot about the economic conditions Michigan residents are facing and particularly how these challenges are hitting people of color the hardest.

According to this new data, which is much more comprehensive than the Current Population Survey released on September 16, not only did Michigan’s median household income continue to fall, but our poverty rate also increased.

Overall, Michigan’s inflation-adjusted median household income declined 6.2 percent between 2008 and 2009 and the poverty rate increased from 14.5 percent in 2008 to 16.2 percent in 2009. Child poverty jumped from 19.4 percent to 22.1 percent in just one year. This means more than 1 in 5 children under 18 are living in families where the total income is at or below $17,285 for a family of three. 

While things got worse for many Michigan residents in 2009, communities of color were harder hit. The median household income fell for all racial groups, but the drop was highest for African Americans  (7.5 percent) and Hispanics (6.6 percent). For white, non-Hispanics, it fell 5.6 percent, less than the overall decline of 6.2 percent.

Just as concerning is the poverty rate for communities of color. Over a third of African Americans (34.6 percent) and 29 percent of Hispanics lived below the poverty line in 2009. In 2008 the poverty rate was 30.3 percent for African Americans and 26 percent for Hispanics. The poverty rate was significantly lower for whites — 12 percent in 2009, up from 10.8 percent in 2008. 

With people of color experiencing higher rates of unemployment, thus lower income and higher rates of poverty, it is clear disparities between races still exist and that communities of color have been hit harder by this recession than whites.  But overall, more people, regardless of race, are turning to safety net programs just to make ends meet and are looking to job training programs such as No Worker Left Behind and adult education programs to increase their skills to be prepared for the knowledge-based jobs of the future.

However, cuts to job training programs, as well as safety net programs, will do nothing to help any Michigan resident, regardless of race, prepare for potential employment opportunities. And in an economy such as this, and in the state that has been hardest hit by this recession, we should be giving all people who want to increase their skills the opportunity to do so to help erase the disparities that clearly still exist.