From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Child Well-Being Description: While many factors influence a child's well-being, some like poverty can have long-term consequences. We discuss the current state of child well-being in the United States. Related GAO Work: GAO-18-41SP: Child Well-Being: Key Considerations for Policymakers, Including the Need for a Federal Cross-Agency Priority Goal Released: November 2017 [ Background Music ] [ Kathy Larin: ] Families play a really important role in ensuring the well-being of children. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm Sarah Kaczmarek. The long-term success of the nation depends in large part on how well families and society care for children. I sat down with Kathy Larin, a director in our Education Workforce and Income Security team, to talk about GAO's new report on child well-being. First I asked Kathy to tell me a little bit about the current state of child well-being in the United States. [ Kathy Larin: ] To get a sense of the state of child well-being in the United States, we looked across more than 20 indicators that cover a range of factors, including children's family, their physical environment, their social environment, and also their health and their education. And what we found is that the well-being of children has improved in some areas, but in others it's stayed the same. And among certain subgroups, children are faring worse than others. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So let me dive into that last point a little bit more about different populations of kids. This isn't a uniform picture. Could you tell me more about that? [ Kathy Larin: ] We found that differences in child well-being vary depending on the indicator, but for a lot of the indicators we looked at, minority children, children in single-parent households, and poor children tended to fair worse. So just to give a couple of examples, Black and Hispanic children were more likely to report living in unsafe neighborhoods. And Black children were more likely to report being homeless than White children. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] What about living in poverty, for example? [ Kathy Larin: ] Living in poverty can have wide ranging ramifications for children and result in poor outcomes. And what we found is that while poverty for children overall has decreased since its peak in 2010, poverty among minorities, particularly Black and Hispanic children, is nearly twice as high as among White children. And similarly, single-parent households tend to have higher poverty rates. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Taking a step back and looking at children's well-being overall, what did you find when you were looking at academic and free lunch programs in school? What type of data did you uncover there? [ Kathy Larin: ] First thinking about academic outcomes, we looked at reading and math scores in fourth grade, eighth grade, and twelfth grade. And we found that those improved or stayed the same over the past decade, but there remains an achievement gap. Black and Hispanic students are still performing at lower levels than White and Asian students. We also looked at graduation rates. And again, they've improved overall but minorities have lower rates. Turning to food insecurity, we found a similar pattern where poor families, single-parent families, and minority families tend to have higher food insecurity. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Unpack that term for me a little bit just so I'm clear on that. What exactly do you mean when you say food insecurity? [ Kathy Larin: ] You know some people refer to food insecurity as hunger, but what it really means is that families don't have enough money for food in their household. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] In addition to the topics that you've mentioned, healthcare is obviously getting a lot of news coverage lately. Are more children insured? [ Kathy Larin: ] They are. Health insurance coverage has improved for children in this country but there still are differences. Poor children are less likely to have insurance and if you look at both insurance and access to both medical care and dental care, Hispanic children have the lowest rates. [ Background Music ] [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] While many factors influence a child's well-being, some like poverty, could have long-term consequences. I asked Kathy to tell me about her team's recommendations for policymakers to improve child well-being for all U.S. children. [ Kathy Larin: ] So we talked to experts from 18 different organizations that represent a wide range of views about what they think is important for policymakers to take into consideration. They brought up a number of issues like, just to give one example, the importance of families. Families play a really important role in ensuring the well-being of children but another thing they point out is that federal programs, government programs, also play a really important role and coordination among government programs is critical. So our recommendation is that the federal government make child well-being a cross-agency priority goal. By doing this, they can make real progress in ensuring that programs are coordinated and meet the needs of children in a way that takes into account the interrelatedness of child well-being issues. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Lastly, what do you see as the key takeaway from this report? [ Kathy Larin: ] Well there are 74 million children in this country. And really our success as a nation rests on the well-being of children. And if we want children to grow up to be responsible and productive adults, we have to make sure they're growing up in healthy and safe environments. And our report shows that in some areas we're making improvements in the well-being of children but there's still more to be done particularly among children who are faring the worst. [ Background Music ] [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Thanks for listening to the Watchdog Report. To hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple podcasts. [ Background Music ] [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] For more from the Congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, visit us at gao.gov.