Star-Tribune Editorial Board

A new report by the Children's Defense Fund, a child advocacy and research group, says considerably fewer Wyoming kids are living in poverty compared to the national average. But that's no comfort to some Cowboy State families who are daily struggling to get by.

The rate of Wyoming children living in poverty is 11.6 percent, or about one in every nine children. The rate jumps to 18 percent nationally, according to the group's "The State of America's Children 2008."

Last year, a half-million more children were added to the poverty rolls. The organization expects the national statistics to get even worse, as families face the full impact of the recession.

So far, Wyoming has been generally insulated from the recession, so it's not difficult to see why children here may be doing better than in other states. There is still job growth here, and the population has been expanding. But problems do exist.

Some of the children in poverty no doubt came with their out-of-state parents, who moved to Wyoming to look for work. About a quarter of low-income families in the state moved here in the past year.

It's difficult - if not impossible - for parents working minimum-wage jobs to adequately take care of their children's basic needs: food, shelter and clothing. Since affordable housing is in short supply in Wyoming, the report said that "fair market rent" accounts for nearly half of the monthly expenditures for a minimum-wage earner.

Many single mothers also have difficulty finding child care assistance so they can go to work or receive job training, especially in rural areas of the state.

Unfortunately, once the cycle of poverty begins for families, it's difficult to break, as poor children are more likely to drop out of school and take low-paying jobs.

Another recent study by the National Center for Children in Poverty found that 73 percent of Wyoming parents who do not have high school diplomas live in low-income families.

Some children - about 5.1 percent of the state's population - are living in extreme poverty, which is defined as having an annual household income for a family of four below $10,600, or half of the official federal poverty line. Nationally, the total number in extreme poverty is 5.8 million, or about one in every 13 children.

Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund, scored a sharp political point when she noted, "If we can bail out Wall Street bankers who have brought our economy to its knees, we can rescue our children from hopelessness, despair, sickness, illiteracy and preventable poverty."

There are several ways Wyoming businesses and individuals can work to help reduce poverty and enable families to provide a better quality of life for their children. Building more affordable housing so families can spend more of their income on other necessities would be a start.

Making child care more available so parents can work, go to school or train for higher-paying jobs is also a way to help lift Wyoming families out of poverty. State government, meanwhile, can assist by making parents pay their court-ordered child support, and helping more children obtain health insurance.

By working to reduce the number of children in poverty, Wyoming can be a model for the rest of the nation - and build a brighter future for its youngest residents.