2015 Progress Report outlines difficulties, proposes immediate solutions that include enacting a $15 minimum wage, expanding early education and increasing investment in proven policies like home visiting for at risk parents.
Children First for Oregon’s newly released 2015 Progress Report shows that Oregon’s children continue to face significant barriers to success. Despite slight improvements in some areas, progress for children is largely stalled – but by adopting policies under consideration this year, Oregon
lawmakers would put thousands of children on the path towards a more prosperous future.
The report details a litany of challenging statistics for Oregon’s children including:
Tens of thousands of Oregon children lack access to early learning. Head Start programs in Oregon only have room for 35 percent of qualified Oregon children due to limited funding.
A child in Oregon has a 1 in 5 chance of being poor – even if one of her parents works. Oregon’s child poverty rate has increased 10 percent since the end of the Great Recession in 2009.
“In Oregon more than half of children in poverty live in a home with a working adult; this is unacceptable. We must make significant and immediate changes or this generation of Oregon’s children will have fewer opportunities than their parents,” says Children First for Oregon Executive Director Tonia Hunt. “Now is the time to unite around our kids. This year’s report shares proven policies that will make an immediate and long-lasting difference for kids in our state.”
In the Progress Report, Children First has called on lawmakers to implement solutions that would immediately benefit Oregon’s kids.
Those policies include:
End working poverty by enacting a $15 minimum wage
Expanding early education
Increasing investment in proven policies like home visiting for at risk parents.
Together these policies would help boost living wages, increase educational achievement, and reduce rates of child abuse and neglect.
The steady decline in the well-being of Oregon’s children stands in stark contrast to the overwhelming public support for children’s issues. “When it comes to caring for and providing opportunity for all Oregon children, there’s a disconnect between our values and our public policy decisions,” said Hunt.
In response, Children First for Oregon has created United for Kids, a statewide pro-child movement, to call on businesses, voters, elected officials, faith communities and service providers to speak with a unified voice for Oregon’s youngest residents.
Organizations and individuals who join United for Kids agree on the simple premise that children should be a top priority in Oregon’s public policies.
www.ORUnitedforKids.org and download the 2015 Progress
Report at www.CFFO.org/Publications.
Children First for Oregon, founded in 1991, is a nonpartisan child advocacy organization, committed to improving the lives of Oregon’s vulnerable children and families. Its mission is to make long-term, systemic change by advocating for policies and programs that keep children healthy and safe, and strengthen families.
