Montana Is Ranked 17th For Underprivileged Children. Here’s Why.

I grew up in a blue collar town. The type of town that you either went to work at a factory, or you moved away and made something of yourself.

Here in Montana, while we have certain areas that are a little more advanced than others, it seems that when it comes to taking care of those who are under privileged, we have some work to do.

I'm one of those people that don't believe that the problems we face are Right Vs Left. I believe our problems deal with those that have and those that don't. There are plenty of Right and Left folks that have plenty, while there are even more Right and Left folks that don't.

READ MORE: Montana ranked near the top for at-risk youth

We see it here in our state, which by the way, makes the Top 20 for States With The Most Underprivileged Children.

Yep, Montana comes in at 17th place and the only state in our region that is ranked higher than us is South Dakota. So, what are the factors used? How is that we're ranked 17th? The folks over at WalletHub took a look at the following factors to determine their rankings:

• Socio-Economic Welfare
• Health
• Education

They then combined those scores and came up with the rankings. So, how did Montana do? As far as Socio-Economic Welfare, we're ranked 29th, it's Health and Education that we really have struggles.

Our Health ranked 13th and our Education ranked 7th.

How do we help Montana's underprivileged children?

Now, remember, this is one of those studies that the higher you rank, the worse off you are. So, it seems that we have some work to do here in Montana. But, what can be done? And how do we go about it?

That's a great question and one that folks have been asking for decades. It seems some areas do better than others, and I suppose a lot of that has to do with environment and encouragement. If you are in a place that values education, changes are, you will do better than if you're in a place that doesn't.

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Plus, if you come from a line of underprivileged folks, how do you break the cycle? Yes, it's possible, but it's not easy, and will certainly require encouragement from outside sources.