I live in Tennessee, a state that routinely and systematically shits on kids and the poor.

Child Poverty, Children Under Six, 2009 and 2010 ⚠️ ↗ (by state)

Note that most of the worst offenders--those with child poverty above 30% and in the high 20%--are almost all solidly conservative states: Southern states are the worst ones, followed by Western and Midwestern states. (Michigan is up there too, primarily because of Detroit, one of the poorest cities in the country. If not for Detroit Michigan would be a lot better; the Western side of the state is like a completely different state from the Detroit side. It's weird.)

Although I must concede that some of the best states are also Western and Midwestern states, all traditionally very conservative. I think this is owing to the fact that these states have such small populations that allocation of resources in those states is much easier. They can afford to be conservative because they have way fewer people. See, you have to factor several different things in here. The population of minorities is important as well; minority populations are not well-integrated with mainstream populations in most of these states which means you're going to have more poor in areas with a lot of alienated minorities.

Children Under Six Living in Extreme Poverty ⚠️ ↗

Again, the worst offenders are the highly conservative Southern states, with Mississippi being the top offender with a whopping 19.18% (that's nearly one-fifth of all under sixes in Mississippi in extreme poverty), followed by South Carolina (17.49%), Washington DC and Kentucky tied at 16.35% and Tennessee in fifth place at 15.45%.