Dane County Group Continues Research On Racial Disparities In Children’s Well-Being In Wisconsin

The group Wisconsin Council on Children and Families has been exploring why racial disparities in terms of children’s well-being in Wisconsin are so extreme, and has found that economics play a major role.

This spring, the Annie E. Casey Foundation released a national report on child well-being that showed that African-American children in Wisconsin were the worst off in the country, whereas white children ranked 10th in their well-being. Now, the council has dug into the numbers further to find out why and what can be done about it.

Executive Director Ken Taylor said Wisconsin has both the lowest score for African-American children and the biggest gap between black and white children on indicators like education, poverty and birth weight.

“There were four states that didn’t have a large enough population in order to be ranked. So we were ranked 46th out of 46,” said Taylor. “That puts us behind Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas as the hardest place to grow up if you are an African-American child.”

A new report put out by the council says that economics plays a big role in the findings. Taylor said solutions to improve the financial condition of family’s often need to span two generations.

“We need to support families so that the parents can get family-supporting jobs. And in the meantime, we also need to be investing in their kids so they grow up in a way that helps them develop and do well in school, so they can have family-supporting jobs,” said Taylor. “It needs to be a two generation approach.”

One barrier found to African American employment in Dane County was a mismatch in what employers expected and what job skills potential workers had to offer. The report notes that these workers may have less formal education and fewer networks.