State of Babies report shows Michigan still ‘reaching’ to serve its youngest residents

Single parents in Michigan can expect to pay half their income for childcare. Children are more likely to go hungry than their peers in other states. Prenatal care for mothers is harder to come by than in most other places in America.

Those are just a few of the indicators that earned Michigan a low rank in the State of Babies Yearbook, a report that looks at the health of children ages zero to three. For the first time this year, the survey ranked states based on a host of indicators of young children’s health.

Health and education during early childhood has been shown to have disproportionate implications for a person’s life outcomes, from their future earnings to their likelihood of going to jail.

The report doles out four rankings (from best to worst): Working Effectively, Improving Outcomes, Reaching Forward, and Getting Started.

Michigan is still “reaching forward,” according to the report. That puts it in the bottom half of all U.S. states. The ranking is based on 60 different measures of child well-being, including child poverty, housing instability, and the child maltreatment rate.

Click here to compare Michigan’s performance to other states. For more details, scroll down for the full state report.

The report was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, one of America’s largest health-focused foundations, and the Perigee Fund, a fund dedicated to childhood mental health.