(The Center Square) – Arizona’s improving economy and welfare reforms have led to better outcomes for children, according to a new report.Common Sense Institute Arizona released a report called “Trends in Child Welfare: The State of Arizona’s Child Welfare Services Child Welfare Needs” last week, highlighting improvements in the state’s child welfare system.
“Good economic policy is good child welfare policy,” Glenn Farley, CSI’s director of policy and research, told The Center Square.Farley said fewer Arizona children “need to be removed from their family homes today than there once were because of improving conditions for children in the state.”The CSI report showed that, in 2010, the average median family income in Arizona was $58,317. The percentage of Arizona children who were in low-income households was 52%, and the food insecurity rate for children was 29%.In 2023, Arizona’s median family income increased to $89,000. The share of children in low-income households fell to 38%, and the child food insecurity rate decreased to 18%.While Arizona’s economy was improving, the state implemented reforms to strengthen its child welfare system.Arizona’s reform efforts, which began under the administration of former Gov. Jan Brewer, to reduce out-of-home populations have been successful, Farley said.The state has “far fewer children in foster and congregate care today than it did back in 2015,” he said. The CSI report showed Arizona has had 1,000 fewer children in its congregate care system than in 2015.The state has become more reliant on kinship care, in which children are placed with a relative when they must be removed from their parents’ home, Farley explained. The report stated kinship care has grown from 35% in 2010 to 43% in 2024.CSI’s report indicated that, from 2010 to 2024, the number of foster homes in Arizona decreased by 48%. The number of spaces available for each child decreased by 52%. In 2024, the number of Arizona foster care services fell below 1,000, the report said.According to Farley, child welfare research that came out in the 1990s and early 2000s showed that the best places to put foster children are with family members.The federal government in the 1980s and 1990s directly supported foster care systems, Farley said, creating incentives for states to increase their foster care populations rather than reduce them.From 1980 to 2000, the number of children in out-of-home care increased by 82%, peaking at 567,000, according to the report. That number came down to 328,947 in 2024.Farley said the federal government modified these incentives in the 2000s to encourage states to assume a more active role in managing their foster care systems.As much as possible, Farley noted, states should attempt to keep those familial relationships together. Since 2015, Arizona reforms have “largely been successful” at doing this, he said.Farley added that an advantage to relying on kinship care is that it saves Arizona money.The report said the Arizona Department of Child Safety’s budget has increased from $711 million to $1.4 billion. Farley stated the increase in the agency’s budget is attributed to “cost-of-living adjustments.”The agency spends a lot of its budget on care services for children removed from family homes or placed temporarily in state custody, he said.When shelter, food, clothing and education get more expensive, “the cost of providing those services also goes up,” Farley explained.Arizona spends an estimated $8 billion annually on its state agencies and nonprofit foster care partners, Farley said. However, he added that “the growth in that spending since 2015 is relatively tame.”Farley said this spending has grown more slowly than the state’s general fund.
