Annual “Kids Count” Report Finds Few Improvements To Well-Being Of Tennessee Children
Photo Credit: John Partipilo
By Anita Wadhwani [Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –
An annual report on the state of Tennessee kids has found slight improvements in child poverty rates but limited — and even downward —shifts in longstanding poor outcomes to their health, education and well-being.
The report, the 2023 Kids Count Data Book by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, measured the state’s performance in 16 different categories in order to paint a portrait of how Tennessee kids are doing.
Overall, Tennessee this year ranks 36th among the states when it comes to its children, a stubborn bottom-half ranking it has not shed since the analysis first began in 2011.
The percentage of three- and four-year-old children who are not in school has increased, rates of low-birth-weight babies have climbed, childhood obesity has ticked up and the rate of kids dying in Tennessee has significantly spiked between 2019 and 2021, the data found.
Poverty represents one small measure of improvement.
In 2019, 20% of Tennessee kids were living in poverty. But by 2021 — during the height of the COVID pandemic —that shifted downwards to 18%, an improvement that is largely seen in rural areas, said Rose Naccarato, director of data and communication for the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth, which helped compile data for the national report.
Naccarato said it’s not entirely clear why the state is seeing that improvement. The small, but significant, dip in Tennessee’s child poverty rate could be attributed to state efforts to invest in Tennessee’s most distressed counties, a national trend toward higher wages or COVID-19 relief efforts, Naccarato said.
There continues to be wide differences in child poverty by race. About a third of Tennessee’s Black children and a quarter of its Latino children are living in poverty; among white children the poverty rate stands at 13%, the report found.
The percentage of children living in extreme poverty, however — defined as half the income levels of the poverty definition — has remained steady.
The report, aimed both at policy makers, the general public and the business sector, identified other challenges for Tennessee children and families, including difficulty securing child care that is compatible with work schedules.
In 2021, 12% of kids five and younger lived in families with someone who could not accept or keep a job because of problems securing child care. Cost was identified as a significant barrier. The state’s annual average cost for a toddler slot was more than $7,900, the report found. That represents 8% of the median income for a two-parent household and 27% of a single mother’s income.
Download PDF of Report HERE.
