By Peyton Walker, Intern at Kentucky Youth Advocates

This month, the Census Bureau released its most recent 1-year estimates from the American Community Survey (ACS). The ACS is a Census survey that tracks a wealth of data, which advocates can access online in a user-friendly, searchable format. The data from the ACS provides important insights that can help us to see what is working and where we need to improve. 

Kentucky Youth Advocates’ KIDS COUNT Data Book will be released this fall, and we have been looking at this data and how it relates to several key indicators of child well-being. This blog highlights a couple of key trends from the ACS and how they may relate to Kentucky’s indicators for child well-being.

Housing

The rising cost of housing continues to be a burden for families nationwide, and Kentucky is no exception. Nearly half of renter households nationwide are cost-burdened, meaning the household spends more than 30% of their gross income on housing costs. In Kentucky in 2023, 42.2% of all renter households were cost-burdened. A significant number of households in Kentucky are severely cost-burdened, meaning they spend at least 50% of their income on housing. Approximately 30% of Kentucky households have income below $34,999, and 69% of households with income between $20,000-$34,999 spend more than 30% of income on housing, with 24.3% of households at that income spending more than 50% on housing costs each month.

While income in Kentucky has seen no significant changes between 2022 and 2023, the cost of rent continues to rise. The median rent increased from $891 in 2022 to $929 in 2023. The increased cost of housing isn’t just an issue for Kentuckians with lower income, however. The median household income in Kentucky is $61,118. For Kentuckian households making between $50,000 and $74,999 a year, 17.3% spent more than 30% of income on housing costs as well. To compare, in 2022, only 12.5% of households in this income bracket were spending 30% or more of their income on housing costs.

Stable housing is one of the key indicators of well-being for Kentucky’s kids that KYA dives into with the Kentucky KIDS COUNT Project. This is especially important as 31.7% of children in Kentucky across all income levels live in renter-occupied housing. The ACS data shows that there is an ever-increasing need for affordable housing in Kentucky and nationwide.

Health Insurance

One area where we have continued to see progress is in the number of Kentucky children with health insurance coverage. Kentucky’s uninsured rate continues to fall: in 2023, just 3.4% of children 18 years and younger were uninsured. This was a decrease from 2022 when 4.4% of children under 18 were without health insurance.

Children aren’t the only ones benefiting. Kentucky families overall are increasing their access to insurance. This may be largely due to the Affordable Care Act leading to expansions in Medicaid as well as the creation of Kentucky’s Kynect marketplace, offering health insurance options for all Kentuckians. Kynect was first established at the end of 2013, and over the course of its first two years, it more than halved the amount of uninsured individuals in Kentucky. Kentucky’s uninsured rate declined from 14.4% in 2013 to 6.1% in 2015. In 2023 it dropped to 5.4% across the board – an all-time low.

Having health insurance increases access to preventive health care and treatment services, which helps keep kids and their caregivers healthy across all stages of life.

Call to Action 

As we apply the new information about housing and health insurance in Kentucky to our work, it is worth noting what makes this information possible. The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey is an ongoing survey that provides more detail on measures like income and poverty than the decennial Census, as well as gives us updated information during the 10 year wait between Censuses. Let’s all do our part by both filling out Census surveys and advocating for Congress to fully fund the Census so we have solid data to set Kentucky children up to thrive.