WASHINGTON STATE

Washington State House Democrats

HOUSE DEMOCRATS

The 2014 Kids Count report is out; Washington is a mixed bag

Each year, the Annie E. Casey Foundation releases its Kids Count Data Book, which contains information on the state of children in the United States. The 2014 edition reports some good—and some troubling—news about Washington’s children.

On the up side, we gained a spot over the course of one year; our overall rank went from 19 in 2013 to 18 in this year’s report. And over the past few years we’ve made slight but important improvements in both education and health, the latter as a result of programs like Apple Health.

But our ranking in economic well-being has slipped. 19 percent of our kids (about 288,000 children) are living in poverty, up from 15 percent in 2005. We are still seeing the effects of the recession and must really work to improve these indicators and create better outcomes for Washington’s youngest residents.
 Nieto, Lilia

For more information:
• The Washington State Budget & Policy Center’s blog, Schmudget, has a great post about the 2014 Kids Count report.
• To see how other states are doing, go to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s website for national and state-by-state data.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation was established in 1948. Its primary mission is to foster public policies, human-service reforms, and community supports that more effectively meet the needs of today’s vulnerable children and families.