New Nationwide Report Ranks Pennsylvania 22nd in Child Well-Being

The Annie E. Casey Foundation recently released its 2023 KIDS COUNT Data Book on state trends in child well-being. The 50-state report ranks Pennsylvania 22nd overall in child well-being, showing declines in major indicators of child health, safety, education, support, and happiness.

About the Kids Count Data Book

Since 1990, the Casey Foundation has ranked states annually on overall child well-being using a selection of indicators. Called the KIDS COUNT index, these indicators capture what children and youth need most to thrive in four domains:

economic well-being,
education,
health, and
family and community.

Each domain has four indicators, for a total of 16. These indicators represent the best available data to measure the status of child well-being at the state and national levels. Indicators include:

Economic Well-Being

children in poverty
children whose parents lack secure employment
children living in households with a high housing cost burden
teens not in school and not working

Education

young children (ages 3 and 4) not in school
fourth-graders not proficient in reading
eighth-graders not proficient in math
high school students not graduating on time

Health

low birth-weight babies
children without health insurance
children and teen deaths per 100,000
children and teens (ages 10-17) overweight or obese

Family and Community

children in single-parent families
children in families where the household head lacks a high school diploma
children living in high-poverty areas
teen births per 1,000

This year’s Data Book presents a picture of how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted child well-being in the United States.

Foundational Information & Report Context

Importance of Child Care

According to one estimate, shortcomings of the child care system cost the U.S. economy $122 billion a year through lost earnings, productivity and tax revenue.

Access & Barriers to Child Care

Despite gains in recent years, the United States is still failing to deliver early childhood education to more than half of its children (54%).
The National Survey of Children’s Health reports that 13% of children birth to age 5 (2.8 million) had a family member who faced work challenges due to child care. More than half of working parents with infants or toddlers reported having been late to work or leaving early at least once in the previous three months due to child care problems, and almost a quarter (23%) have, at some point, been fired for it.
According to an analysis by the advocacy organization Child Care Aware, the average annual cost of care for one child in America
was $10,600 in 2021—one-tenth of a couple’s average income or more than a third (35%) of a single parent’s income.
Child Care Aware also has estimated that center-based infant care costs more per year than in-state tuition at a public university
in 34 states and the District of Columbia.
Child care costs have risen 220% since the publication of the first KIDS COUNT Data Book in 1990, significantly outpacing inflation.

Issues & Inequities Within Child Care

Of children eligible for subsidies under federal rules, only 1 in 6 receives them.
The shortcomings of the child care system disproportionately affect the financial well-being of women, single parents, parents in poverty, families of color, and immigrant families.
Parents tend to need child care earlier in their career when lower salaries match their limited experience. Young parents spend
an average of 14% of their household income on child care, twice the share the federal government recommends.
Researchers estimate women were five to eight times more likely than men to experience negative employment consequences related to caregiving in 2022.

Cost of Providing Child Care

Labor costs can account for more than 80% of a child care provider’s expenses.
Child care workers make less than workers in 98% of our nation’s other professions, despite the vital role they play in preparing the next generation to thrive.
The median pay for child care workers, who typically must hold a range of credentials, was $28,520 per year or $13.71 an hour in
2022. That’s less than the median pay for:
- customer service representatives ($18.16),
- retail sales positions ($14.26), and
- restaurant jobs ($14) that don’t require the same level of education.
Ninety-four percent of child care workers are women; 14% are Black and 4% are Asian, and across all races, 24% described their ethnicity as Hispanic or Latino.
Staffing shortages have left those within the field “more stressed” (85%) and “exhausted/burnt out” (75%). These shortages were a factor for the more than one-third of owners and operators who said they were considering shutting down.

Key Findings

Nationwide Data

Negative Trends

Half of the indicators tracked in the 2023 Data Book worsened since before the pandemic, while four stayed the same, and only four saw improvement. The most recent data available show that fewer parents were economically secure, educational achievement declined, and more children died young than ever before.
In 2022, 74% of eighth-graders were not proficient in math, the worst figure in the last two decades. Also, more young children did not attend school, and the percentage of high school students graduating on time stalled.
In 2021, the child and teen death rate was 30 deaths per 100,000 children and youths ages 1 to 19, the highest rate seen since 2007, with continued increases in deaths by suicides, homicides, drug overdoses, firearms, and traffic accidents.

Positive Trends

The number and percentage of children without health insurance improved between 2019 and 2021. Thus, efforts to expand access to stable and affordable coverage helped children and families.
Over the last two years, the teen birth rate improved, a smaller percentage of children lived with parents who lacked a high school diploma and there was improvement in the number of children living in high-poverty communities.

Racial Inequities in Child Well-Being

Data suggest that the United States fails to provide American Indian, Black and Latino children with the opportunities and support they
need to thrive, and to remove the obstacles they encounter disproportionately on the road to adulthood.
Nearly all index measures show that children with the same potential are experiencing disparate outcomes by race and ethnicity. A few notable exceptions:
- Black children were more likely than the national average to be in school as young children and to live in families in which the head of the household has at least a high school diploma.
- American Indian and Latino kids were more likely to be born at a healthy birth weight.
- Latino children and teens had a lower death rate than the national average.
However:
- Black children were significantly more likely to live in single-parent families and in poverty.
- American Indian kids were more than twice as likely to lack health insurance and almost three times as likely to live in neighborhoods with more limited resources than the average child.
- And Latino children were the most likely to be overweight or obese and live with a head of household who lacked a high school diploma.

State Data

New Hampshire ranks first in overall child well-being, followed by Utah and Massachusetts. Mississippi (at 48th place), Louisiana (49th) and New Mexico (50th) are the three lowest-ranked states.
States in Appalachia, as well as the Southeast and Southwest (where families have the lowest levels of household income) populate
the bottom of the overall rankings. In fact, except for Alaska, the 15 lowest-ranked states are in these regions.
Although they are not ranked against states, children in the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico experienced some of the worst outcomes on many of the indicators the Foundation tracks.

Pennsylvania Data

Negative Trends

The number of children whose parents lack secure employment and the number of teens not in school and not working increased over the last two years.
Additionally, fewer than half of:
- young children are in school,
- fourth-graders are proficient in reading, and
- eighth-graders are proficient in math.
Statistically:
- 55% (up from 53% in 2016) of 3-4 year olds are not in school.
- 66% (up from 60% in 2019) of fourth-graders are not proficient at reading.
- 73% (up from 61% in 2019) of eighth-graders are not proficient in math.
More children and teens are:
- dying,
- overweight or obese, and
- in families where the household head lacks a high school diploma.

Positive Trends

Though Pennsylvania’s rate of uninsured children is 4% and approximately 126,000 children cannot access affordable, quality health care coverage through Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), more Pennsylvania children are insured now than in 2019. Additionally, the percentage of low birth-weight babies is down from 2019.
Fewer children are:
- living in households with a high housing cost burden (25% from 27% in 2019),
- in single-parent families (34% from 35% in 2019), and
- living in high-poverty areas (9% from 12% in 2016).
Also, fewer teenagers are giving birth (12% from 13% in 2019).
Despite significant drops in indicators, Pennsylvania outranked most states in education.

For more detailed Pennsylvania data, view the KIDS COUNT Data Book state profile.

Policy Recommendations

The Annie E. Casey Foundation encourages policymakers to take the following actions:

Federal, state and local governments should invest more money in child care.
Public and private leaders should work together to improve the infrastructure for home-based child care, beginning by increasing access to startup and expansion capital for new providers.
To help young parents, Congress should expand the federal Child Care Access Means Parents in School program, which serves student parents.

Learn More

To learn more, read the full report or visit the Annie E. Casey Foundation website.

Source

Information for this post was taken directly from the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 2023 KIDS COUNT Data Book. Some text may have been added, paraphrased, or adapted for readability and comprehension.

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