Rhode Island ranks number one in spending per impoverished child — $11,244 — according to the latest child welfare data. (Stock photo by Os Tartarouchos via Getty Images)
If the fact that Rhode Island’s child welfare system wastes lives isn’t enough to prompt real change, consider the staggering waste of money. New data show Rhode Island spending on child welfare is proportionately the highest rate in the nation — well over triple the national average.
The amount is equal to $11,244 for every impoverished child in the state. Rhode Island’s children would be far better off if the state could simply give every impoverished family $11,244 per child.
The amount itself isn’t even the problem. I’m a tax-and-spend liberal and proud of it. If Rhode Island had the best child welfare system in the country it might be worth it. But most of this money is wasted on all those needless removals of children and unnecessary foster care. (The great paradox of child welfare is: the worse the option, the more it costs; places like the now closed St. Mary’s Home for Children in North Providence don’t come cheap.) Rhode Island is spending a fortune harming children.
If nothing else, anytime anyone in government says of a new prevention or family preservation program, or a program to provide family defense, that “We can’t afford it,” they are, at best, ill-informed.
The money is right under their noses, being thrown away. (Yes, some of it is restricted, but there are all sorts of ways to get creative with some of those funding streams if you put your mind to it.)
The data come with a whole lot of caveats – including the fact that data for six states are missing. Here’s the into-the-weeds part:
Every few years, Child Trends, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center with offices in Maryland, Minnesota, and North Carolina, attempts the Herculean task of trying to figure out how much every state and the District of Columbia spends on “child welfare” and where the money is coming from. That’s 51 jurisdictions X roughly 32 funding streams = 1,632 cells on a spreadsheet.
So, it takes a while. Child Trends just released its most recent version — the data are from fiscal year 2022.
It does not attempt to do a state-by-state comparison. So we do at the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. Here’s our latest Rate-of-Spending Index.
As you may know, the coalition also does a Rate-of-Removal Index, comparing the propensity of states to take away children.
If nothing else, anytime anyone in government says of a new prevention or family preservation program, or a program to provide family defense, that ‘We can’t afford it,’ they are, at best, ill-informed.
Comparing the two produces what one would expect: Of the top 15 spenders, all but two take away children at a rate at or above the national average – in Rhode Island’s case, far above. (The exceptions are New Jersey and D.C.) Seven of the top 15 spenders also are in the top 15 for rate of removal – including Rhode Island.
It’s not just the high rate of removal. It’s also the fact that Rhode Island is so reliant on the form of “care” that is both the worst for children and the most expensive — group homes and institutions.
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