The report highlights alarming trends, finding 67% of fourth graders are not proficient in reading and 38% of families spend over 30% of their income on housing.
Norín Dollard, a senior policy analyst and KIDS COUNT director at the Florida Policy Institute, said the report highlights the need for wide-ranging action.
“There’s not just one piece of policy, administrative change, legislative change, that’s going to address the fact that so many families are impoverished,” said Dollard, “or that our health care looks the way that it does. And that our education is not improving.”
The state’s education ranking plummeted from fifth to 19th since 2024, with 79% of eighth graders failing math benchmarks.
Meanwhile, proposed federal cuts to Medicaid and a lack of new state investments threaten to worsen health outcomes – where 8% of children remain uninsured.
Leslie Boissiere, vice president of external affairs for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, noted that racial disparities persist nationwide, mirroring the divide in Florida.
“The child well-being outcomes on 15 out of 16 indicators for Native kids are lower than the national average,” said Boissiere. “If you look at Black kids, it’s eight out of 16 indicators, where Black kids’ outcomes are lower than the national average.”
Despite progress in reducing teen births and single-parent households, advocates say Florida’s stagnant high school diploma rates and deepening inequities underscore the need for targeted investments.
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This article appears in Jun 19-25, 2025.