Do You Know Your State’s Baby Facts?
How are our youngest children doing? What's working in communities and states, and what needs work?
For those of us who advocate for infants, toddlers and their families, having access to a data profile about babies in our state can be a powerful tool.
To understand, improve, and make the case for our work with children and young people, we need the right data in the right format. Yet it is often difficult to find the facts you need when you need them. This is particularly true when it comes to specific data on the youngest children across the country.
That's why ZERO TO THREE has put together State Baby Facts, a series of online factsheets covering every state and the District of Columbia and presenting infant and toddler data in the framework of good health, strong families, and positive early learning experiences.
By providing a snapshot of how infants and toddlers are faring in each state, we can help inform policymakers about the programs that are working to improve the lives of infants, toddlers, and their families.
But that’s not all—there’s more to understand than just the data for your state. ZERO TO THREE’s Baby Facts: Observations for States tells a story about the facts, providing highlights on how infants and toddlers are faring across some states. For example, did you know that in 36 states, the cost of child care for an infant is more than one-third of the median income for a single mother? Or that the three states with the highest percentage of low-birthweight babies are neighboring states Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi?
What the Data Can Tell Us
When looking at the profile of each state’s youngest children, we see that where you are born can make a difference in your chances for a good start in life. To begin with, some states have more young children to look out for than others: Vermont and Wyoming have less than 23,000 children under the age of three, while California and Texas have well over 1 million.
Infants and toddlers in Mississippi are more than three times as likely to be poor than those in North Dakota (34 percent live in poverty in Mississippi compared with 9 percent in North Dakota).
In almost every state, more than 30 percent of families receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families have children under age 3. In Massachusetts, Vermont, and Washington, DC, young children are the 99 percent—that is, the 99 percent who have health insurance.
Despite these differences, a common thread runs across state lines: too many babies are growing up in families under great economic stress that makes it difficult to provide the ingredients necessary for healthy development. These young families often lack critical resources—whether it’s adequate health care, ample food, housing security, or positive early learning opportunities—that play a crucial role in nurturing a young children’s development and helping them realize their potential.
This has far-reaching implications. When essential programs that buffer young children against multiple hardships fail to reach all of those in need, not only does it jeopardize children's individual opportunities, it hurts our nation’s ability to build the strong, competitive workforce we all need for a healthy future.
We want to hear from you. We encourage you to check out your state’s Baby Facts now and tell us what you think. Were you surprised by the facts? How might you use the data to better advocate for the infants and toddlers in your state?
Let us know in the Comments below, or by emailing Debbie Rappaport, project director at ZERO TO THREE.
Jaclyn Szrom is a Senior Federal Policy Analyst with ZERO TO THREE, a national nonprofit organization that informs, trains and supports professionals, policymakers and parents in their efforts to improve the lives of infants and toddlers.
