Does Texas really rank 25th in economic well-being for children?

This is a response to something in The San Antonio Express-News.

Texas’ rank of 43rd in the nation for child well-being as reported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation might not tell the whole story, (“Texas ranks toward the bottom for child well-being,” June 27).

 

The report uses four areas: health, education, economic well-being, and family and community. The economic well-being category definitely bears some scrutiny, where Texas ranks 35^th, putting it in the bottom half of the fifty states.

 

The Casey report in turn has four categories for economic well-being. For each one, here are the percentages for the whole country and Texas.

 

Children in poverty: USA 19%, Texas 22%.

 

Children whose parents lack secure employment: USA 28%, Texas 27%

 

Children living in households with a high housing cost burden: USA 32%, Texas 31%.

 

Teens not in school and not working: USA 7%, Texas 8%.

 

Any discussion of a state’s economic well-being, especially Texas’, should take into account tax rates and cost of living. George Mason University economics professor Tyler Cowen reported in Time magazine in 2013 that “once those factors are accounted for, Texas has the third highest average income.”

 

It is not clear to what extent the Casey report addressed these two issues. The “housing cost burden” seems to do so, but not entirely.

 

The Casey report clearly states that this burden is not based on take home pay. It says there is a burden when families pay “more than 30 percent of pretax income on a home, whether they rent or own.”

 

So just as Texas does well on average income once tax rates are considered, the housing burden factor might improve. We can’t know how much, though, since the Casey report does investigate this. But Texas could be better than 35^th in economic well-being.

 

On “children in poverty,” we can at least look at what happens to poverty rates in states when tax rates and cost of living are taken into account. This comes from the Census Bureau’s “Supplemental Poverty Measure.”

 

It looks at after tax income (including state taxes). Also taken into account are expenses for child care and work as well as noncash benefits such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) and housing assistance.

 

The official poverty rate for Texas from 2014-2016, according to the Census Bureau was 14.7% while it was 13.7% for the whole country. Using the Supplemental Poverty Measure, the Texas rate falls to 14.7%, which is also the national average.

That may not seem like a big change, but it most likely means that Texas would have a smaller gap in child poverty compared to the rest of the country, as shown in the Casey report. Then Texas’ rank in economic well-being, again, could be higher than 35^th.

 

Besides using data adjusted for cost of living and taxes, we can look at individual behavior to know that the Texas economy might be doing better than at first glance. The Sacramento Bee reported last year that between 2005 and 2015, 293,000 poor people left California for Texas while it was only 137,000 going in the opposite direction.

 

Why would we see this happen if Texas is such a poor destination for children? People voting with their feet might tell us something that the official data might not be able to.

 

The last category, “teens not in school and not working” shows Texas being below average. But that does not tell us if those families have a low income.

 

We should definitely work to build a better Texas economy in the future. But the Casey report is not necessarily the last word.

 

https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Study-Texas-ranks-43rd-in-child-well-being-13028631.php?