The Colorado Children’s Campaign has released the 2021 Kids Count report looking at child well-being. It’s the first report to include data from the COVID-19 Pandemic.
This year's report, titled "At a Tipping Point," looks at the wide-reaching impact of income loss and how that affected families with children. The Colorado Children's Campaign reports half of all Colorado households with children reported a loss of employment income during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Some of the more concerning trends: from April 2020 to March 2021, an average of 10% of Colorado households with kids reported not having enough food to eat in the past week.
The pandemic also had a big impact on education. The number of children enrolled in school district preschools fell by 23% between fall 2019 and fall 2020. Nearly 54,000 kids lacked internet access at a time when the majority of Colorado kids were forced to do at least some remote learning.
Those without access were disproportionately elementary school children from Hispanic or Latino families whose parents were essential workers.
“As Colorado weathers another increase in COVID-19 cases, our state’s leaders must take action to ensure kids don’t spend another day missing out on the economic, health and educational support that they deserve," said Sarah Hughes, Vice President of Research Initiatives at the Colorado Children’s Campaign, in a statement.
