| Overview | Health and Nutrition |
State policies that promote health, education, and strong families can help the early development and school readiness of America's youngest citizens. This profile highlights Arkansas's policy choices alongside other contextual data related to the well-being of young children.
State Highlights1
Arkansas allocated $25 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds through the Child Care Development Block Grant to expand child care throughout the state, increase access to care for infants and toddlers, and provide technical assistance for child care programs. Additionally, Arkansas increased their Arkansas Better Chance pre-kindergarten funding by 3 percent ($2.8 million) for a total of $113.8 million and plan to serve more than 550 additional children, bringing the total number of available slots to over 25,000. Arkansas also sought to strengthen economic supports for families and children by expanding state tax credit programs like the Child Tax Credit and Making Work Pay credit which provide partially-refundable tax credits to working adults and low-income families.
- Young children (under age 6)2: 228,690
| Health and Nutrition |
Data Notes and Sources
Last Updated: December 4, 2009
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- State Highlights are drawn from states' government and organization websites and reports. For more information, contact ITO@nccp.org.
- State data were calculated from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement (the March supplement) of the Current Population Survey from 2007, 2008, and 2009, representing information from calendar years 2006, 2007, and 2008. NCCP averaged three years of data because of small sample sizes in less populated states. The national data were calculated from the 2009 data, representing information from the previous calendar year.
- National and state data were calculated from the 2008 American Community Survey.