Fast Facts

Who's in child care?
Parents of young children are in the workforce in record numbers. In Spring 1997,12.4 million (63 percent) of the 19.6 million children under 5 years of age were in some form of regular child care arrangement during a typical week.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/p70-86.pdf

Forty four percent of infants under the age of 1 year are in non-parental care for an average of 31 hours a week. Eighty four percent of 4- to 5-year-olds are in child care for an average of 28 hours per week.
http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/ccquality00/ccqual.htm

For approximately 13 million children under age 6 and 31 million children between the ages of 6 and 17, both parents or their only parent is in the work force.
http://www.childcareaction.org/rfacts.html

...and school performance:
Quality early childhood education can make a critical difference in the later success of poor children.
http://www.fpg.unc.edu/~abc/

...and caregivers:
In 2001, 61 percent of children ages 0 to 6 (and not yet in kindergarten) spent time in nonparental care. Twenty-three percent were cared for by a relative, 16 percent by a nonrelative but in a home, and 34 percent in center-based programs.
http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/socemo/early/21ChildCare.htm

Caregiving arrangements for young children vary according to the age of the child and the demographics of the family.
http://childstats.gov/ac2002/indicators.asp?IID=43&id=1

...and its cost:
The high cost of care puts high quality child care out of reach of many families. The average annual cost of child care for a 4-year-old in an urban area center is more than the aver-age annual cost of public college tuition in all but one state.
http://www.childrensdefense.org/pdf/highcost.pdf

One on four American families with young children earn less than $25,000 a year, and a family with both parents working full time at minimum wage earns only $21,400 a year.
http://www.cdfactioncouncil.org/Indexcc.htm

In Spring 1997,there were 32.6 million mothers who lived with at least one of their children under age 15. Thirty-three percent reported they paid for child care for at least one of their children. Those who paid for child care paid an average of $71 per week. (p. 16).
http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/p70-86.pdf

Relatively few grandparents were paid for caring for their grandchildren of preschool-age (15 percent). While grandparents were the least expensive arrangement for preschoolers of employed mothers, day care centers were the most expensive. (p. 14)
http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/p70-86.pdf

...and availability of assistance:
Many more families are eligible for child care assistance than can actually get it. Nationally, only one out of seven children eligible under federal law receives help. In two-fifths of the states, a family earning just $25,000 a year would not qualify for assistance.
http://www.cdfactioncouncil.org/Indexcc.htm

Over one-third of states place eligible families who apply for help on waiting lists or turn them away without even taking their names.
http://www.childrensdefense.org/pdf/cc_statedev01_tb2.pdf

In 1998, just 15 percent of children eligible for Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) assistance actually received help through the program. If every state set eligibility limits at the maximum levels that federal law allows, some 14.7 million children would have been eligible for subsidies in fiscal year 1998, of whom only 10 percent were served.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ccb/research/ccreport/ccreport.htm

Fast Facts

Who's working
Today, most women are in the labor force, including three in five mothers with babies under a year old. Census, childcareaction.org?

Low-income families—where many children are
A substantial number of children live in working poor families. The proportion of children living in working poor families rose 16 percent in the 1990’s, from 19 percent in 1990 to 22 percent in 2000.
http://www.aecf.org/kidscount/c2ss/summary.htm

The working poor have significantly more family care-giving responsibilities than do higher-income workers, including care for children with special needs, but few low-wage jobs offer flexible schedules, sick days, or other benefits to help parents meet their family obligations.
http://www.lowincomeworkingfamilies.org/pdfs/ford_analysisfinal.pdf

Fast Facts

Who's covered—and who's not?
Health insurance coverage for children rose modestly during the late 1990s, reaching 88 percent by 2000.
http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/health/coverage/26HealthCareCoverage.htm

Despite the passage of the SCHIP, at the start of 2002 there were still some 8.2 million children who remained uninsured.
http://www.coveringkids.org

Some 52.7 million children—two out of three — were privately insured in 1999, mainly through their parents' employers. One in five children are covered by Medicaid. More than 3.3 million children were enrolled in the State Children's Health Insurance Program in fiscal year 2000, an increase of almost 1.4 million from the previous year. However, more than 6 million children remain eligible for, but not enrolled in, either S-CHIP or Medicaid.
http://www.allhealth.org/ch03_main.html

Recent state expansions of coverage for children dramatically increased the availability of health insurance for low-income children in working families. However, coverage for those children's parents is extremely limited,
http://www.familiesusa.org/media/pdf/disparities_in_eligibility.pdf

Does health insurance matter? Yes.
Uninsured children, compared with insured children, are six times more likely to have gone without needed medical, dental or other health care. They are four times more likely to have experienced delays in seeking care.
http://www.allhealth.org/ch03_main.html

For every child in America who does not have medical insurance there are 2.6 children who do not have dental insurance. On average, America’s youngest and poorest children (ages 2-5 and living below the poverty level) have almost 5 times as much tooth decay as children of higher income families (>300% poverty). Furthermore, in poor children with decay, almost 80% of it remains untreated.
http://www.nidcr.nih.gov/sgr/children/kidsbyte.htm

Health Trends are Improving, Disparities Remain
Infant mortality has dropped for all racial and ethnic groups since 1983, but substantial racial and ethnic disparities remain. Black, non-Hispanic infants have consistently had a higher infant mortality rate than that of other race or ethnic groups.
http://childstats.gov/ac2002/indicators.asp?IID=26&id=4

More than one in eight children was overweight in the United States in 1999, nearly triple the rate of the 1960s.
http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/health/status/15OverweightChildrenYouth.htm

Cigarette use among adolescents shows continued indications of decline from 2000 to 2001.
http://www.childstats.gov/ac2002/highlight.asp

The percentage of high school students carrying weapons declined from 26 percent to 17 percent between 1991 and 2001, with the greatest decrease among non-Hispanic black students.
http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/health/violence/violence.htm

The teen birth rate dropped by more than one-fifth between 1991 and 1998. In 1998, the birth rate was 30 per 1,000 females ages 15 to 17—the lowest it has been in at least 40 years.
http://childstats.gov/ac2000/highlight.asp

But Rising Health Costs are Threatening Health Care for Vulnerable Families
Average state Medicaid spending went up 25 percent between FY2000 and FY 2002, at the same time that the economic downturn decreased state revenue growth.
http://www.allhealth.org/pub/pdf/Costs-Coverage_Aug2002.pdf

Facing fiscal crises, many states have started cutting back their Medicaid programs this year—and the crises are not over—falling state revenues and rising health costs are very likely to persist, increasing the risk of further Medicaid cutbacks this fall or in early 2003.
http://www.cbpp.org/7-12-02health.htm

Fast Facts

Schools and Budgets
Some states spend a lot more on their students than other states. New Jersey and New York led all states in the amount of money spent per student on elementary and secondary education in 2000.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2002/cb02-69.html

In 2000 state governments contributed $186 billion for elementary and secondary public school funding. Local governments contributed $161 billion, and the federal government, $27 billion.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2002/cb02-69.html

The average public school in America is 42 years old. Forty-six percent of America’s public schools lack the electrical and communication wiring to support today’s computer systems.
http://www.nea.org/lac/modern/

How U.S. Students Perform
The percentage of 25- to 29-year-olds who completed at least high school rose from 78 percent in 1971 to 88 percent in 2000. Over the same period the percentage of high school completers in this age group who also completed at least some college increased from 44 to 66 percent, and the percentage who obtained a bachelor's degree or higher rose from 22 to 33 percent.
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=27

Average mathematics scores increased for all age groups between 1982 and 1999, but average reading scores have not improved among students since 1980.
http://www.childstats.gov/ac2002/indicators.asp?IID=34&id=6

The average reading scores for America's fourth-graders have remained unchanged over the past eight years, but there is a widening gap between the best readers and the worst. The reading gap between racial groups has remained steady over this period.
http://nces.ed.gov/Pressrelease/rel2001/4_6_01.asp

Students with Learning Disabilities
Ten percent of boys and 6 percent of girls ages 3-17 have been identified by a school official or health professional as having a learning disability.
http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/health/status/65LearningDisabilities.htm

Fast Facts

Currently, use of more than 70,000 chemicals is allowed in the United States. Little is known about the health effects of the majority of these chemicals on children. Despite new regulations and standards, children continue to be exposed to toxicants in the air, water and food.
http://www.cehn.org/cehn/WhatisPEH.html

According to the Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility, chemicals widely used by industry and commonly found at home are linked to learning, behavioral and developmental disabilities.
http://www.preventingharm.org/harmswayreadmore.html

In proportion to their body weight, children breathe twice as much air, eat 3 to 4 times more food, and depending on age, drink 2 to 7 times more water. Many studies show that as children's exposure to home, lawn, and garden pesticides (including lice shampoos) increases, so does their risk of NHL (non-Hodgkin's lymphoma), brain cancer, leukemia, and other cancers.
http://www.childenvironment.org/position.htm#brain

Of all the problems caused by our environment, lead poisoning is one of the most serious. Infants and toddlers can get sick by putting their fingers in their mouths after touching lead dust, eating lead paint chips, or breathing in lead dust. Lead poisoning can cause learning disabilities, behavioral problems, anemia or damage to the brain and kidneys.
http://www.aeclp.org/main_page_3_sub.html#The Problem of Childhood Lead Poisoning

According to the Environmental Working Group, wood in picnic tables, playsets and many school and public playgrounds that has been treated with chromated copper arsenate to protect against pests and decay may expose children to unacceptable levels of arsenic.
http://www.ewg.org

According to a 1999 Government Accounting Office report, only two states—Louisiana and New York—have in place mechanisms to collect information about pesticide use in schools, and neither of them is analyzing the data.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/rc00017.pdf

There is a national network to track infectious diseases, like polio and yellow fever, but no such network to track chronic diseases, like asthma and diabetes and potentially associated environmental factors. even though chronic disease is responsible for 70% of all deaths in America.
http://healthyamericans.org/campaigns/

Fast Facts

Trends look good
Since 1993, the violent crime offending rate for youth ages 12 to 17 has decreased by 67 percent, from 52 violent crimes per 1,000 youth in 1993 to 17 per 1,000 youth in 2000.
http://www.childstats.gov/ac2002/highlight.asp

The prevalence of heavy drinking among adolescents has been stable over the past few years. In 1999, 31 percent of 12th-graders, 26 percent of 10th-graders, and 15 percent of 8th-graders reported having five or more drinks in a row at least once during the past two weeks.
http://childstats.gov/ac2000/highlight.asp

The number of children who were victims of child maltreatment increased from 826,000 in 1999 to 879,000 in 2000, reversing a decline between 1996 and 1999.
http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/health/violence/40ChildMaltreatment.htm

The presence of a weapon such as a gun, knife, or club, increases the chances that violent behavior will have serious health consequences. Homicide is the second highest cause of death for youth 15-19, accounting for 15 percent of all deaths in 1999. http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/socemo/delinquency/19StudentsCarryingWeapons.htm

Fast Facts

Kids are the Poorest among Us:
America’s children are almost twice as likely to live in poverty as Americans in any other age group. The number of American young children living in poverty increased from 3.5 million in 1979 to 5.2 million in 1997. The young child poverty rate grew by 20 percent during that same period. 10 percent of America’s young children live in extreme poverty, in families with incomes of under 50 percent of the poverty line. http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/nccp/ycpf.html

While overall child poverty rates declined in the late 1990’s, the decline was not uniform across states. Between 1990 and 2000, the percentage of children in poverty decreased in 29 states, increased in 16 states and the District of Columbia, and remained about the same in 5 states.
http://www.aecf.org/kidscount/c2ss/pdfs/front/summary.pdf

Poor Families Work, but Earn Little
A majority of all poor children under age six—65 percent—live with at least one employed parent. Only one-sixth of poor young children (17 percent) lives in a family relying solely on public assistance for income.
http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/nccp/ycpf.html

Many children live in households that have housing problems, such as physically inadequate housing, crowded housing, or a high cost burden. The percentage of households with children that have these problems has been increasing since 1978; 35 percent had one or more housing problems in 1999, up from 30 percent in 1978.
http://www.childstats.gov/ac2002/summlist.asp

Poverty Puts Kids at Risk

—for Learning
Very young children living in poverty are much less likely than are nonpoor children to be able to recognize the letters of the alphabet, count to 20 or higher, write their name, or read or pretend to read.
http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/socemo/early/7EarlySchoolReadiness.htm

For adolescents, growing up in poverty is associated with a lower probability of graduating from high school. Growing up in poverty is associated with lower occupational status and a lower wage rate as an adult. The problems associated with being raised in severe poverty (less than 50 percent of the poverty threshold) are correspondingly worse.
http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/income/poverty/4Poverty.htm

Research indicates that extreme poverty during the first five years of life has especially deleterious effects on children’s future life chances compared to less extreme poverty experienced later in childhood.
http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/nccp/ycpf.html

—for Good Health
Being raised in poverty ($17,463 for a family of four in 2000) puts children at increased risk for a wide range of problems. For young children, growing up in poverty is associated with impaired health and development.
http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/income/poverty/4Poverty.htm

In 2000, 18 percent of children lived in households reporting any level of food insecurity, down from 20 percent in 1998. Children in families below the poverty line were nearly three times more likely to experience food insecurity and hunger than children in families with incomes above the poverty line.
http://www.childstats.gov/ac2002/highlight.asp