| Overview | Health and Nutrition |
State policies that promote health, education, and strong families can help the early development and school readiness of America's youngest citizens. This profile highlights Pennsylvania's policy choices alongside other contextual data related to the well-being of young children.
Trends1
Pennsylvania's income eligibility for young children's public health insurance coverage remained at 235 percent of the poverty level between 2001 and 2006, but increased to 300 percent in 2007. There was an increase in prekindergarten funding; however, the number of children on the waiting list for child care more than doubled between 2005 and 2007, with 8,714 children still unable to access child care subsidy.
Recent Developments1
The 2008 budget includes an increase of $1 million to expand the Nurse-Family Partnerships home visiting program and an increase of $14 million to support early intervention services (of which $1.8 million will be set-aside for infants and toddlers). Pre-K Counts was created in 2007 with a $75 million public investment to provide approximately 11,000 three- and four-year-olds with quality pre-kindergarten in schools, Head Start, child care programs and nursery schools. The 2009 proposed budget includes another $12.5 million to serve 1,000 more children next year. This is in addition to $40 million in state funds appropriated towards Head Start while maintaining current funding for the Education Accountability Block Grant. The budget also includes a $48.8 million increase for the Keystone Stars quality initiative and Child Care Works Subsidy program.
| Health and Nutrition |
Data Notes and Sources
Last Updated: September 3, 2008
Send us recent developments to update your state's profile.
- The trends and recent developments come from personal communications with state advocates, administrators, and policymakers. The following publications were also consulted:
Donna Cohen Ross, Aleya Horn, and Caryn Marks, Health Coverage for Children and Families in Medicaid and SCHIP: State Efforts Face New Hurdles: A 50-State Update on Eligibility Rules, Enrollment and Renewal Procedures, and Cost-Sharing Practices in Medicaid and SCHIP in 2008, Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, January 2008 http://www.kff.org (accessed April 11, 2008).
W. Steven Barnett, Jason Hustedt, Allison Friedman, Judi Stevenson Boyd, and Pat Ainsworth, The State of Preschool 2007, National Institute for Early Education Research, 2007.
Karen Schulman and Helen Blank, State Child Care Assistance Policies 2007: Some Steps Forward, More Progress Needed, National Women's Law Center, September 2007.
National Center for Children in Poverty, Map and Track State Initiatives for Young Children and Families, 2000 Edition, 2000
National Conference of State Legislatures, Child Care and Early Education Legislation Highlights 2005, June 2006
National Conference of State Legislatures, Child Care and Early Education Legislation Highlights 2006, unpublished draft
National Governors Association, Front and Center education articles, 2006, http://www.nga.org
ZERO TO THREE, The Baby Monitor, 2006 Policy and Advocacy News Archive, http://www.zerotothree.org - State data were calculated from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement (the March supplement) of the Current Population Survey from 2006, 2007, and 2008, representing information from calendar years 2005, 2006, and 2007. NCCP averaged three years of data because of small sample sizes in less populated states. The national data were calculated from the 2008 data, representing information from the previous calendar year.
- National and state data were calculated from the 2007 American Community Survey.