New ‘Kids Count’ data shows drop in college readiness, education participation among young adults

Filed 1h ago · Via Michigan Advance · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: The White House · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

The Michigan League for Public Policy released its 2026 Kids Count report in Lansing, showing the state ranking 42nd nationally in education and 34th in overall child wellbeing, with third-grade reading proficiency falling and 73.4% of 11th graders missing college-readiness benchmarks. Child Medicaid enrollment has dropped by more than 65,000 since January 2025, and food insecurity among children rose from 14.2% in 2019 to 19.7% in 2024.

More than 56,000 Michigan children have lost SNAP benefits since June 2025 following new work requirements under the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act, with one in three people losing benefits statewide being a child, according to policy director Anne Kuhnen. Young adult poverty has fallen since 2019, but 7.3% of teens aged 16-19 are neither working nor in school, and the group recommends expanding the state's earned income tax credit and community college guarantee to address the gaps.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A law that claims to target working-age adults and ends up pulling food assistance from tens of thousands of kids is not a rounding error, it's the design showing through the paint. Nobody drafting that bill sat down and decided children should absorb a third of the cuts, they just didn't bother checking who was standing downstream. Michigan can add all the free Pre-K it wants; it won't offset a policy written somewhere else and felt everywhere here.

Source: Read the original at Michigan Advance → Scored: Gypsy Shoegazer No Voices · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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