Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.

On today's show, we're thrilled to welcome back Naomi Schaefer Riley, a frequent writer for the magazine,

who follows child welfare issues closely, and that's exactly what we're going to be talking about today. Hello again, everyone. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.

Joining me on the show today is Naomi Schaefer Riley.

Naomi is a resident fellow at the American

Enterprise Institute, focusing on issues regarding child welfare, as well as a senior fellow

at the Independent Women's Forum and a longtime contributor to City Journal. You can follow her on

Twitter at Naomi S. Riley. This is Naomi's second time joining us in the studio, and we're happy to have her back.

Naomi, thanks for coming on.

Thank you. It's a pleasure.

You've been writing a lot for us recently about foster care,

and I know it's something you feel strongly about and have covered for a while.

So let's start with this question.

What is the general state of foster care in America?

And what is the size of the foster care population?

So there are a little over 440,000 kids who are in foster care at any one time during the last year,

or when the, I'm sorry, when the fiscal year kind of closed. But there are many more kids who are going in and out over the course of that year. The number has been rising for the last several

years. Many people say this is linked to the drug epidemic that has overtaken the country.

That is certainly at the heart of a lot of child removal cases.

I would say in general, the foster care system is pretty broken.

And I think New York, certainly that's the case, but it's true all the country, both in rural and urban areas.

I think you are seeing a lot of kids who are going in and out of the system over and over again.

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