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KIDS COUNT overall rank in United States

KIDS COUNT overall rank

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Note: Non-consecutive years appear adjacent in the trend line
because one or more years have been deselected.

Definition and Source

PROVIDER

Definition

The 2023 Overall Index Ranking should not be compared to prior year rankings. The data source for “Young children not in school” changed to the 5-year American Community Survey because of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on data quality in 2020. 

The overall rank for each state was obtained in the following manner. First, we converted the 2023 (or 2022/2021, depending on the indicator) state numerical values for each of the 16 key indicators into standard scores. We summed those standard scores within their domains to create a domain standard score for each of the 50 states. We then summed the four domain standard scores to get a total standard score for each state. Finally, we ranked the states on the basis of their total standard score in sequential order from highest/best (1) to lowest/worst (50). Standard scores were derived by subtracting the mean score from the observed score and dividing the amount by the standard deviation for that distribution of scores. All measures were given the same weight in calculating the total standard score.

Data Source

Population Reference Bureau, analysis of data gathered for the 2023 KIDS COUNT Data Book.

Last Updated

June 2023