To make positive change for kids, you need to know where things stand, what’s working and what needs to be improved. The annual KIDS COUNT Data Book offers both data and context for 10 indicators of child well-being—and drills down to a state and local level. This year’s essay offers a “roadmap for reform” in juvenile justice. CFK summer intern Maria Allen attended the June 2008 launch event in DC and has this overview.

President Bush's fiscal year 2009 budget proposal includes $2.8 billion in cuts to programs that impact children—a 3 percent drop from last year's federal budget. First Focus, a bipartisan children's advocacy organization, takes a reader-friendly look at the numbers and what they say about our nation's priorities.

To be poor "is to be an outcast in your own country. And that, the neuroscientists tell us, is what poisons a child's brain," writes Paul Krugman in a recent New York Times op-ed. In his CFK/CA360 column, Hershel Sarbin wrestles with the often-daunting task of communicating about child poverty—and why a renewed, solutions-based focus on child poverty may be around the corner.

I was somewhat surprised when I recently came across the following paragraph on the Voices for America’s Children Website: “As a society we pay a steep price for allowing one in five of our nation’s children to live in poverty. Economists estimate the annual national cost of persistent childhood poverty due to lost adult productivity and wages, increased crime, and higher health expenditures is massive: approximately $500 billion or four percent of the nation’s gross domestic product”...

Finding quality, affordable child care can be difficult for any parent. For those with a special needs child, it can also be a very confusing and emotional experience. Rebecca Freshour looks at what the law says, and what parents need to know to find care for their children.

For the first time in 10 years, the federal minimum wage will get a boost—from $5.15 to $7.25 in 2009. It’s not enough to end poverty in America, but it is a start. Just ask Julie Smith, who took a job as cashier after dropping out of college to raise her daughter. The increase is also expected to benefit an estimated 6.4 million children whose parents earn minimum wage, according to the Economic Policy Institute. In an article for OneWorld, Caitlin Johnson reports.

Here�s something you don�t see every day: a recent Aspen Institute report looks at the impact of job training programs on low-skilled and low-income workers � but this time, it�s from their own perspectives. The report captures participants� sense of how programs affected their families, community interactions, and self-esteem, and what challenges to success and stability remain. Among the continued struggles were finding affordable child care, medical care, and transportation and balancing the demands of work and family life, typically with little job flexibility or leave.

The 1996 welfare reform bill was designed to move public assistance participants from welfare to work, often quickly and without adequate supports to help families truly rise out of poverty. This policy brief from the National Assembly�s Family Strengthening Policy Center looks at �work-plus� strategies (as opposed to work-first approaches) that offer work supports like child care assistance, transportation help, tax assistance, etc. in addition to employment services. The brief includes recommendations for policymakers, businesses, and community organizations.

How does welfare work? The answer often depends on the state � states vary, for example, in the amount of hours participating parents must work, what counts as �work,� rules about emergency cash assistance, and other areas. And the recent legislation reauthorizing welfare and setting stricter work requirements is likely to have diverse effects in different states. This very readable new Urban Institute brief summarizes state programs and their differences.

This Center on Budget and Policy Priorities brief looks at a new study that paints a more in-depth picture of American debt inequality than studies based on Census data alone. What it finds is that now more than ever, the richest one percent is getting richer, while the lowest-income Americans are making scant progress. From 2003 to 2004, the average incomes of the bottom 99 percent of households grew by less than 3 percent, while the average incomes of the top one percent of households jumped almost 17 percent (after adjusting for inflation).