By Terry Brooks, Kentucky Lantern · June 15, 2026

Judy and I just reviewed our youngest grandchildren’s report cards (Their older siblings mysteriously can’t find theirs!) and those Brooks kids seemingly are doing well.  The documents were filled with “Os” and “Ss,” which I guess are now the new “A” and “B.”  In-depth narratives – generated by either AI or hard-working teachers – densely populated a couple dozen spaces.  Those new report cards reminded me of “War and Peace.” It’s so much information that I literally could not digest it all into a comprehensible framework, though each kid convinced the grandparents that they were worthy of an end of school treat for stellar performance.

I sometimes worry that the annual KIDS COUNT Data Book – the nation’s equivalent of a report card on the well-being of our children co-released by Kentucky Youth Advocates and the Annie E. Casey Foundation – is a bit too much like those new-fangled report cards.  

You can learn the Kentucky rate of low-birthweight babies and you can see our rate of child deaths.  My competitive nature also makes me want to know if we’re better than Indiana in education (We’re not!) or Tennessee in health (We are!). Each of those indicators is so important, but frankly the annual avalanche of data can be overwhelming.  

There is the one data point I do get with clarity – almost 200,000 Kentucky kids woke up this morning in poverty.  

I have dug into KIDS COUNT data for more than two decades and I have no doubt – the seminal data point is childhood poverty.  It undergirds the current status of every other indicator. Economic well-being impacts academic achievement, health outcomes, and family stability. Childhood poverty is also a weathervane for the future. If that trendline is improving, inevitably other measures will follow in the next 2-3 years. And if that trendline is worsening, then you just know where those other measures are going.

If the rate of childhood poverty is the most illuminating data point, it is also the most frustrating because leaders in Frankfort could do so much to address this measure but choose to do so little. That trendline has remained steady in my more than two decades at KYA regardless of who lives in the Governor’s Mansion and regardless of who controls the legislative chambers.  

Maybe the lack of progress is a sad cop-out that widespread childhood poverty is “just Kentucky being Kentucky.” Or maybe we all just believe that economic policy is just too political for the already overly partisan environment in which our democracy operates.  Or maybe we think that changing the economic narrative is just too big of a swing.  

None of that thinking should persist.  We can and we should and we must center on this issue if we are ever going to make Kentucky the best place in America to be young.  And we need action now.

As an example, Gov. Andy Beshear can impact almost 60,000 kids’ economic status immediately by enhancing support to – rather than ripping away resources from – kinship families. That can and should happen today.

And the General Assembly? There are, in fact, glimmers of hope. In recent years, legislators have had promising conversations on issues like housing instability and food security, two issues that are part and parcel of the scourge of poverty for our children.  But we need more than rhetoric … we need palpable policy action. Let’s hope that current conversations lead to substantive wins in 2027.

Or what if the General Assembly, key constitutional officers, and the Governor decided to come together and tackle the Commonwealth’s unrelenting economic pandemic and fought for kids by fighting against predatory lending? That issue has drawn increasing support from conservative lawmakers in other states as leaders come to see this as a moral as well as economic cause.

Or looking ahead, imagine if the General Assembly, working with whomever the new Governor is when the 2028 session convenes, crafts a biennial budget that incorporates tax policies that have demonstrated a positive impact on childhood poverty in other states and at the federal level.  

There are a myriad of tax measures that can alleviate poverty for our kids and families. As an example, a refundable state-level earned income tax credit (EITC) can make a demonstrable impact right away for low-income, working families. And the EITC? It has been a favored tax strategy by Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. It actually is a boost for families and local economies. In other words, there is no reason – political, ethical, or pragmatic – for Kentucky’s next budget not to feature tax initiatives which will directly and proactively impact childhood poverty. In designing a budget, our kids should come before bourbon and battery plants 

Mark Twain once observed that, “Data is like garbage. You’d better know what you’re going to do with it before you collect it.” The data on Kentucky’s kids and their economic well-being has been collected. The question is, of course, “What will our leaders in Frankfort do with it?”