TOPEKA — Measures of family, community and economic well-being improved for Kansas kids between 2019 and 2024, indicating a drop in child poverty, but education and health markers declined, leaving advocates concerned.
Kansas ranked fifth in the country for economic well-being in 2024, as assessed by the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s annual 50-state evaluation of the most recently available statistics on education, health, economic and social outcomes for children.
The state’s overall comparative ranking has improved in recent years’ data, and stayed the same as the previous year’s data, remaining 14th in the nation in 2023 and 2024.
The data showed 13% of Kansas children, or around 87,000 kids, lived in poverty in 2024, which was down from around 101,000 in 2019. John Wilson, president and CEO of Kansas Action for Children, said the state is one of the best in the country for affordability.
But, he said, the state can do more “to ensure families’ economic success is not throttled by broken systems.”
“The data point to parents having fewer choices in accessing and securing affordable healthcare for their families, and Kansas leaders must work toward ensuring Kansas kids can have all of these basic needs met,” Wilson said in a June 4 statement.
In 2024, about 51,000 Kansas children lacked health insurance, or about 7% of kids in the state, according to the data. In 2019, an estimated 43,000 kids didn’t have health insurance.
Wilson said improving access to Medicaid and private health insurance, streamlining public assistance applications and increasing health care provider reimbursement rates could help Kansans.
The 2026 report ranked Kansas 25th in health. Outcomes tracking the state’s number of low birth weight babies, children without health insurance, child and teen deaths and child obesity rates show a picture of health among Kansas kids that is slowly worsening. Each of those measures increased between 2019 and 2024, and the state’s uninsured rate among children ticked one percentage point above the national average.
“The needs go far beyond health care,” Wilson said. “To grow up healthy, kids need safe, stable homes, strong learning opportunities at all ages of childhood, nutritious food, and supportive relationships with adults. These create a strong foundation for lifelong well-being.”
Kansas’ favorable overall score was helped by low numbers of children in families without parents working full-time and children living in households with high housing cost burdens. Teen birth rates and the number of children living in high poverty neighborhoods also improved.
The ranking was hurt, however, by declining education measures. The percentage of eighth graders not proficient in math increased from 67% in 2019 to 74% in 2024. More Kansas fourth graders similarly struggled with reading. An estimated 66% weren’t proficient in reading in 2019, and 72% weren’t proficient in 2024. Both measures rose above the national average.
On-time high school graduation rates improved from 13% of Kansas students failing to graduate high school on time in 2019 to 11% in 2024.
For the first time in this year’s Kids Count data book, the Annie E. Case Foundation gave states a five-year score out of 1,000 points in addition to a yearly national ranking.
The foundation said in a June 8 news release that the new scoring system goes beyond comparing states to one another or the nation and shows whether public policies and investments improve children’s lives.
“Behind every number in this report is a child who is either hungry or fed, housed or homeless, progressing academically or falling behind,” said Lisa Lawson, president and CEO of the foundation.
Lawson added: “No state is consistently getting this right.”
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