Improving Early Learning: State Legislative Actions in 2018.

(1) Since 2002, annual state spending on preschool has increased from $2.4 billion to $7.6 billion. (2) Nineteen percent of the nearly 20 million children under age 5 in the U.S. live in poverty. (3) Forty-eight percent of children from low-income families are ready for school at age 5, compared with 75 percent of children from families with moderate and high incomes.