RENEE MONTAGNE, host: Time now for business news.  Research on America's children finds that      they're losing ground in several crucial areas, with growing poverty at      the top of the list.  NPR's Rachel Jones reports.</s>RACHEL JONES reporting: The 2005 Kids Count Data Book finds that five of 10 indicators of child      well-being had worsened since last year's report.  In recent decades,      there had been significant improvements in areas such as child poverty,      infant mortality, teen deaths and low birth weight babies.  But by 2002,      the most recent year for which data are available, there were increases      in each of those areas.  Growing poverty emerged as the leading threat.      The number of children who live with a parent who had not worked in the      past 12 months increased from three to four million.  Often these      so-called hard to employ parents are hampered by issues like domestic      violence, depression or prior incarceration.  Douglas Nelson is president      of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which produced today's report.</s>Mr. DOUGLAS NELSON (Annie E. Casey Foundation): These are the families      who are still on the welfare rolls.  They are families that are--left the      welfare rolls maybe two or three years ago that are coming back.  They      are families who haven't yet been able to reap the promise of welfare      reform, and that is a path to work and to self-sufficiency.</s>JONES: There was some good news in this year's data.  Overall, child      death rates continued to fall, as did the high-school dropout rate, and      births to teen-agers continued to decline.  But Nelson says policy-makers      should focus on economic and employment supports for families, because      child well-being improves when parents can do a better job of providing      for them.</s>JONES: Rachel Jones, NPR News.
An annual report on child well-being from the Annie E. Casey Foundation finds an increase in the number of children living in poverty in the United States. On an encouraging note, declines were noted in teen births and high-school dropouts.