Fewer children in Missouri and Kansas live in high-poverty areas, but students continue to grapple with math and reading after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools, according to the latest Kids Count report
The annual child wellness report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation ranks states on kids’ economic well-being, education, health, and family and community. Kansas ranked 19 overall, and Missouri ranked 32 — both a couple places below last year.
Ryan Reza, data and policy analyst for Kansas Action for Children, said states across the country improved in every measure of how families are doing since 2019.
In 2022, fewer children in Missouri and Kansas lived in single-parent families and in families headed by someone without a high school diploma. Fewer people had children as teenagers, as well.
“We want to see that trend continue in the years moving away from the pandemic, and to make sure that we don’t see any lasting influence of the pandemic — whether that’s pandemic-era support programs’ decline, or getting off the books or families having their livelihoods altered,” Reza said.
Fewer children in Kansas and the same percentage in Missouri lived in poverty since before the pandemic began. Kansas Action for Children said pandemic-era support programs like the child tax credit and easier access to health care helped.
But much of that aid has since expired, and Reza said indicators that directly influence poverty, like food insecurity, are heading in the wrong direction and may cause declines in future reports.
Tracy Greever-Rice, project director for the Missouri Kids Count, said families may still feel burdened, even as they make more money, because they have fewer public resources.
In Missouri, 22% of children live in households where families spend more than a third of their income on housing.
“If you have a third of your working time spent just covering those basics, what are you not able to do for your kids that you’d really like to be doing?” Greever-Rice said.
Rising teen and child mortality rates
Missouri ranks 40th in the country for children’s health. Children weigh less at birth than they did in 2019, and mortality rates for children and teens rose. Kansas ranks 19th for health, but saw the same patterns.
Child and teen mortality rates in Kansas went up to 35 deaths per 100,000 in 2022, compared to 28 in 2019. Missouri’s rate jumped to 41 deaths, compared to 32 in 2019.
Reza said the report’s mortality rate numbers differ from the Kansas Child Death Review Board’s data because Kids Count includes all child deaths in the state.
The Kansas Child Death Review Board’s latest report found that the overall death rate for teens and children hit a record low in 2021 and the rate of deaths from natural causes is also trending downward.
