News

July 5, 2023

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:

  1. economic well-being,
  2. education,
  3. health, and
  4. 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.

Related Content & Resources

News

News

April 3, 2019

PAsmart Announces Grant Awardees

In February 2019, Governor Tom Wolf announced funding for PAsmart Apprenticeship and Next Generation Industry Partnerships grants which will connect Pennsylvanians with the information needed to succeed in our evolving economy.

About PAsmart

PAsmart is focused on ensuring Pennsylvania students and workers have the skills and abilities to meet the economic needs of the 21st century. This initiative aims to do this by expanding access to STEM education in Pennsylvania schools, embracing the Next Generation Industry Partnership model, and creating the Apprenticeship and Training Office to increase apprenticeship opportunities within a variety of industries.

OCDEL’s Role

The Office of Child Development and Early Learning supports the efforts of PA’s Department of Labor and Industry and is working with them to professionalize the early education field. Efforts include increasing access to a career pathway that results in stackable, portable credentials, and providing relevant, developmentally and culturally appropriate content to support educators working with young children to advance their individual career and education progression.

Organization Grantees

The following organizations will be supported through PAsmart funds:

  • 1100c Training and Upgrading Fund: Will expand their apprenticeship model in Southeastern Pennsylvania
  • Partner4Work: Will establish a regional hub for Early Childhood Education registered apprenticeships in the Pittsburgh Metro Area
  • Keystone University: Will partner with Lackawanna Trail High School, Luzerne County Community College, and Wilkes University to build an Early Childhood Education (ECE) pipeline through a competency-based apprenticeship that leads to an entry-level ECE credential
  • Shippensburg University: Will design curriculum and develop advanced competencies to expand the Philadelphia ECE apprenticeship to four-year programs
  • Arcadia University: Will expand their RA program for ECE
  • First Up and its partners: Will expand upon apprenticeship supports and program to provide career paths in ECE

Learn More

For more information, visit pasmart.gov.

* Information provided by OCDEL’s PA Early Ed Newsletter

News

March 13, 2019

Child Care Becoming More Unaffordable for Low-Income Parents

Overview

A recent research brief, Child Care Affordability for Working Parents, from the Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy, Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University, finds that many U.S. parents who are highly attached to the labor force would have a difficult time purchasing full-time center-based care.

Spending

This finding is especially true for low-income, Hispanic and black parents. Overall, parents working full time and year-round would spend 10 percent of family income to send their children to full-time center-based child care; low-income parents working full time and year-round would spend 28 percent. Almost all low-income parents working full time and year round would have to spend more than the federal affordability benchmark of 7 percent to send their children to full-time center-based child care.

Ranking

According to the brief, Pennsylvania ranks fifth highest nationally in child care price to income ratios for low-income parents, and in fourth highest for Hispanic parents.

Analysis

Even for families with a parent working a full-time year-round job, full-time center-based child care for young children and care during the school year for school-age children is largely unaffordable. Importantly, the parents included in this analysis are those with a clear need for child care.

This analysis has three key findings about the affordability of center-based care for working parents. First, market-price full-time center-based care would be difficult to afford for a majority of U.S. working parents. Second, center-based child care presents an even greater financial burden for low-income working parents – virtually all (95%) low-income full-time year-round working parents face unaffordable child care costs. Finally, because larger proportions of working black and Hispanic parents earn low incomes than working white and Asian/Pacific Islander parents, child care affordability issues disproportionately affect black and Hispanic working families. This disproportionate burden has the potential to exacerbate racial/ethnic disparities in both family economic security and child wellbeing.

Read the full research brief here