The latest Kids Count report shows fewer children in Missouri and Kansas lived in poverty in 2023 compared to pre-pandemic years, but many are still struggling to rebound from reading and math learning loss.

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 14th overall, and Missouri ranked 27th — both a few places above last year.

Both states reduced the number of children living in high poverty areas or in families headed by someone without a high school diploma. In 2023, more children had parents with secure employment. Fewer people had children as teenagers as well.

Pandemic-era support programs like the child tax credit lessened the blow of the worst economic effects of the pandemic, according to the report.

Jessica Herrera Russell, senior communications manager for Kansas Action for Children, said proposed federal budget cuts could limit families’ access to other support measures like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

“Sick parents aren’t going to be able to consistently work. Hungry kids aren’t going to be able to learn,” Herrera Russell said. “We really need to make sure that we ensure that everybody who is eligible is able to get help from what those programs are for.”

The percentage of Kansas children without health insurance in 2023 was the same as before the pandemic and improved by a couple points in Missouri. But 3,000 Kansas children lost health insurance from 2022 to 2023 because of paperwork issues when states redetermined Medicaid eligibility, Herrera Russell said.

According to the report’s other health indicators for wellness, children in Missouri weighed less at birth than they did in 2019, and mortality rates for both states’ children and teens rose.

The number of children in Missouri living in households that spent a large portion of their income on housing costs also stayed the same, and decreased by a percentage point in Kansas.

Tracy Greever-Rice, project director for the Missouri Kids Count with the Family and Community Trust, said 1 in 5 of the state’s children live in households that spend at least a third of their income on housing.

“Housing costs… includes things like mortgage and rent, insurance, utilities and other expenses that are just related to keeping that roof over your head,” Greever-Rice said. “We are improving in poverty, but there is additional work to do around being at risk of living in a household that is experiencing poverty.”

Struggle to recover academically

Despite several economic improvements for Missouri and Kansas children, both states have lost ground in nearly all of the report’s education indicators of well-being.

The exception is graduation rates — the number of high school students graduating on time in Missouri stayed the same and increased by two percentage points in Kansas.

But access to early childhood education remains a concern. In Kansas, 55% of young children ages 3 and 4 years old weren’t enrolled in school and in Missouri, 57% weren’t — both a couple of percentage points lower than before the pandemic.

Greever-Rice said early childhood education for students is predictive of long-term academic success.

Students in Missouri and Kansas are also still struggling to recover in reading and math to pre-pandemic levels, according to the Kids Count data. In Missouri, 77% of eighth graders were not proficient in math and 73% of fourth graders were not proficient in reading.

In Kansas, 74% of eighth graders were not proficient in math and 72% of fourth graders were not proficient in reading.

In addition to targeted learning investments, Herrera Russell said reducing the amount of adverse childhood experiences that children go through will also help them academically.

Adverse childhood experiences are traumatic events that affect children in the long term — like economic hardship, experiencing domestic or community violence, living with someone who has a mental illness or substance use problem or facing discrimination based on race or ethnicity.

“If their parents are able to keep stable housing, if they’re able to ensure that they can get their kids to school, if they are able to make sure that they have enough to eat for every meal,” Herrera Russell said, “that will decrease the amount of trauma that kids go through and the amount of upheavals, and that will enable kids to go to school, ready to learn.”