Arkansas did not fare well in this year's 2025 Kids Count Data Book, released today.
The report, developed by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, analyzes the well-being of kids nationwide.
Although the data show fewer Arkansas children are living in poverty than before the pandemic, the Natural State is ranked 45th overall.
Keesa Smith-Brantley, executive director of the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, said state leaders need to do more to ensure all kids have a good quality of life.
"There's not just one piece of policy, administrative change, legislative change that's going to address the fact that so many families are impoverished," said Smith-Brantley, "or that our health care looks the way that it does, and that our education is not improving."
Arkansas also ranks among the ten lowest states for the number of children living in single-parent families, eighth-graders performing below the proficiency level in math, and teens between 16 and 19 who are not in school or working.
One bright spot in the report shows the number of children living in poverty has decreased since 2019, but Smith-Brantley said the differences in wealth are divided among racial lines.
"When you start breaking that data down pertaining to race, you see that Black children have a poverty rate of 43%," said Smith-Brantley, "like that is a startling number. Then when you go and look at white children in Arkansas, they have the lowest rate of poverty, at 15%."
And for Hispanic or Latino children in Arkansas, the report says 19% live in poverty.
Leslie Boissiere, vice president of external affairs with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, said the racial disparities are apparent nationwide.
"The child well-being outcomes on 15 out of 16 indicators for Native kids are lower than the national average," said Boissiere. "If you look at Black kids, it's eight out of 16 indicators, where Black kids' outcomes are lower than the national average."
She added that those results are similar for Latino children as well.