The 3 million kids are missing edition. The coronavirus pandemic has not hit everyone equally. We know that Latinx and Black households are most adversely affected, both in the workplace and in susceptibility to COVID-19. Women, too, have been hit hard, the pandemic’s effects exacerbated by their familiar role as primary caregivers as well as their over-representation in the decimated service industries. But there is a whole other population at risk – children and young people. This week, a groundbreaking study was released that estimates 3 million of the most educationally marginalized children have not seen the inside of a classroom – virtual or in-person – since last March, when most schools shut down. Many of these 3 million are kids with disabilities, English learners, students in foster care, migrant students, and homeless students.

We can’t wait for economic justice. We can’t wait for healing and wellbeing. We can’t wait for safe communities. It is time for a New Deal for Youth that responds to the historic roots and current scale of the crisis. When the once-in-a-lifetime catastrophe is over, our future as a nation will depend on how intentionally we support and invest in this generation.

The number of children without health coverage in the U.S. increased by about 726,000 between 2016 and 2019, bringing the total to more than 4 million uninsured children and reversing years of national progress, a new report finds. The report, issued earlier this month by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, concludes that many of the gains in coverage made as a result of the Affordable Care Act’s major expansions, implemented in 2014, have now been eliminated.

The over the cliff edition. President Trump and Senate Republicans, exuberant over a certain Supreme Court vacancy but considerably less so when it comes to helping Americans to eat or pay rent, are prepared to push millions over the cliff. More than 13.4 million people currently receiving unemployment benefits stand to lose assistance come Dec. 31. Three out of every four states have run out of money to pay for Trump’s Lost Wages Assistance (LWA) Program. New poverty data shows the number of poor people in this country increasing dramatically since May. And, as always, not everyone is being tossed over the cliff equally. Black people and Latinx are more than twice as likely as white people to be poor. Both groups disproportionately work in industries hard-hit by the recession and may face barriers to aid – if it even exists.