Iowa kids are doing well overall in new national findings on children’s well-being, although they are slipping in a few key areas. The numbers in Iowa reflect a national trend in the 2025 data.
Iowa ranked ninth in child well-being, according to the 2025 Kids Count Data Book by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. On the upside, only 3% of Iowa kids are uninsured, and the state’s high school graduation rate is tied for second-highest in the nation. But only 29% of fourth graders are reading proficiently.
Anne Discher, executive director of the advocacy group Common Good Iowa, said the number belies Iowa’s long-held reputation for excellent public schools, reflected by the image of a one-room schoolhouse on the back of the state quarter crafted by the U.S. Mint in 2004.
“Of all the images that Iowans could have potentially come up with, they thought the thing that most captured the state was our foundations are in education and that great schools are really important,” Discher observed.
The annual Kids Count Data Book reflects the well-being of the state’s kids in four key areas: education, health, economic well-being and family and community.
While the number of Iowa’s uninsured kids is low, Congress is debating reducing Medicaid funding which could drive the number up and affect kids whose families rely on SNAP benefits.
Leslie Boissiere, vice president of external affairs for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, said the cuts would fall directly on Iowa’s hungry kids.
“I think it’s critically important that policymakers look at the data on food security in their community, that they look at the data on access to health care, that they look at what has been effective in driving child well-being,” Boissiere urged.
The Kids Count report compared data from 2019 to 2023. It found one in five Iowa children lives in a household where parents do not have secure employment, and one in five lives in a family paying at least 30% of their income for housing.
