Mixed Marks Put Maryland Kids at Risk

In 2024, Maryland had the highest median income of all fifty states. But if you think that means our children are doing better than kids in most other parts of the country, you are wrong. And that’s troubling news, given what is known about the risk factors associated with child wellbeing and contact with the justice system.

Maryland ranks just 21st in the nation in overall child wellbeing, according to the 2024 KIDS COUNT Data Book, a project of the Annie E Casey Foundation that has been tracking national and state data across 16 child wellbeing indicators for the past 35 years. New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts are ranked first, second and third; Mississippi, Louisiana, and New Mexico ranked 48th, 49th and 50th, respectively.

This year’s Kids Count report focuses on how children and families have fared since 2019 – the year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. During that time, eight of the 16 key indicators have improved in Maryland, six have declined, and two are unchanged.

The Data Book indicators focus on four domains:

• Economic Well-Being: Parents struggling to maintain steady employment and cover the cost of housing are not alone in carrying the stress of poverty. Their children experience it, too — in ways that can harm their development.

• Education: Most Marylanders agree that every child deserves a great education, but a lack of access to early childhood education can undermine a child’s social and emotional development.

• Health: Children’s physical and mental health are deeply influenced by other elements of wellbeing and also affect their ability to succeed in school and pursue other opportunities.

• Family and Community: Living in a high-poverty neighborhood can contribute to stress and fuel worries about safety

Maryland saw positive trends in the economic indicators. In 2023, 15,000 fewer children were living in poverty compared to in 2019. The number of children living in families where neither parent was fully employed all year declined from 24 percent in 2019 to 20 percent in 2023. These improvements were likely due to state and federal policies enacted during this period, such as expanded working family tax credits and an increase in the state minimum wage.

Housing costs remain the greatest challenge for Maryland families, as 29 percent of Maryland’s children—nearly one in three—were living in households with high housing cost burden in 2023 compared to 31 percent in 2019. “High housing cost burden” refers to households in which more than 30 percent of monthly household pretax income is spent on housing-related expenses.

All four indicators in the education domain have worsened since 2019. Preschool participation for children ages 3 and 4 has not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels—an average of 54 percent of children in that age group did not attend school from 2019-2023 compared to 50 percent from 2014-2018. Reading and math proficiency also declined. About 66 percent of 4th graders were not proficient in reading in 2024 compared to 65 percent in 2019. Among the state’s 8th graders, 75 percent were not proficient in mathematics compared to 67 percent in 2019, a 12 percent increase.

In the area of health, 95 percent of children in Maryland had health insurance in 2023 – a decline from 2019 when 97 percent of children were insured. There was also a 25 percent increase in child and teen deaths compared to 2019. Some of these can be attributed to gun violence and drug-related deaths that increased in Maryland and nationally during this period. It should be noted that these numbers have decreased in recent years.

While the trends documented in the 2025 Data Book are noteworthy, most of the data are from 2023. Since then, a lot has happened – including federal workforce layoffs, federal and state budget cuts, and threats to programs that have proven effective in leading to some of the positive trends highlighted in the Data Book.

Combined with the coming massive cuts to federal food assistance and health care programs, these changes threaten to reverse some of the gains from previous years. And that, in turn, could impact community safety, and child wellbeing. When families do well, and children have the opportunity for a prosperous future, our communities do well.

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Nonso Umunna is KIDS COUNT Director at the Maryland Center on Economic Policy (MDCEP). MDCEP advances innovative policy ideas to foster broad prosperity and help our state be the standard-bearer for responsible public policy. We engage in research, analysis, strategic communications, public education, and grassroots alliances promoting robust debate and greater public awareness of the policy choices Maryland residents face together.

In addition to the annual Data Book, the Kids Count project offers a wealth of data on a wide range of indicators, including economic, educational, health, and family and community factors. You can access this information at datacenter.aecf.org and download the 2025 Kids Count Data Book at mdeconomy.org/2025-kids-count-data-book.