Kentucky’s child poverty rate declines, but remains well above national average
Though Kentucky’s child poverty rate continues to outpace the national average, the overall rate has dropped in recent years, a new study shows.
Nearly half of the state’s children in 2017 lived in low-income households, according to the Kentucky Youth Advocates 2019 County Data Book, an annual report released Tuesday that serves as a snapshot of the physical and emotional well being of Kentucky’s kids and youth. Low-income in this case is categorized as below 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
Of that population, 22 percent lived in poverty in 2017, a decrease from nearly 27 percent in 2012. Twelve percent, or 114,000 of the state’s kids, lived in deep poverty — below 50 percent of the federal level: a figure that has remained unchanged since 2013. Last year, the average child poverty rate nationwide hovered around 16 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Poverty begets other hardships, such as school readiness and overall health. Though it’s an improvement from recent years, only about half of kindergartners were considered school-ready last year.
Suicide also continues to be a serious threat to adolescents. Among high school sophomores, for example, 16 percent said they “seriously considered” suicide, 12 percent actually made a plan to commit suicide, and 8 percent attempted it.
Notably included in the report for the first time are family reunification rates among children placed in out-of-home care because of abuse or neglect. Kentucky’s child welfare system prioritizes family reunification, which means that when a child is removed from their family for abuse or neglect, the state is supposed to provide necessary support to parents in order to reunify that child either with their primary caregiver, and if not them, another relative or fictive kin.
The data show that, in most cases, that’s still not happening, and is getting worse.
For every 1,000 children in Kentucky, approximately 47 were in out-of-home care last year — an increase from 35 between 2011 and 2013. Despite that increase, the percentage of kids reunited with their families dropped from 41 percent in 2013 to 36 percent last year. Rates were worse or unchanging than years prior in 80 of the state’s 120 counties.
Though white children make up the greatest portion of the state’s foster care population, the report found that black children continue to be “significantly over represented” in the foster care system. Non-hispanic black children and teenagers account for about 9 percent of the statewide population of minors but make up 18 percent of the foster care population.
Black kids and teenagers are more likely to be placed in institutional settings, such as a group home or treatment facility, are less likely to be placed with family or fictive kin, are more likely to experience multiple placements and homelessness, and are more likely to age out of the foster care system without caretaker support.
To help level the disproportion, Kentucky Youth Advocates suggests the state target the “recruitment of black foster parents” in order to “help keep foster youth in their local community and maintain connections to their culture.”
This story was originally published November 20, 2019 at 1:46 PM.
