No Evidence The Child Tax Credit Expansion Had An Effect On The Well-Being And Mental Health Of Parents.

In 1997 the US established the Child Tax Credit (CTC), which offers payments to parents of dependent children to help defray child-rearing costs. In 2021 a temporary expansion to the CTC increased the size of payments, extended payments to families with low or no earnings, and distributed payments monthly instead of annually. Quasi-experimental evidence from the US and experimental evidence from low- and middle-income countries shows that moderate-to-large cash transfers improve subjective well-being and mental health. We estimated the CTC's expansion's effects on the subjective well-being and mental health of adult recipients, using data from the Understanding America Study, a nationally representative survey with more than 7,000 respondents and more than 2,700 unique respondents with children. We found no evidence that the CTC expansion had a significant short-term impact on measures of life satisfaction, anxiety, and depression symptomology among adult recipients. We speculate that the null effects may be due to the expansion's temporary nature.

The Evolution and Impact of Federal Antipoverty Programs for Children.

Despite our wealth, child poverty in the United States remains too high. The social safety net prevents and mitigates poverty for millions of children each year and evidence demonstrates long-term positive effects for recipients. But absent a commitment to universalism, our public investments in children produce uneven - and often inequitable - results. Our current system is heavily means-tested and work-conditioned. Though heavily targeted, it varies widely in adequacy and coverage by location and across population groups and it fails to serve all children in need. This article describes the evolution of the US social safety net for children over the last century. It traces the early 20th century origins of the contemporary system and the changes it saw through the mid-century's War on Poverty expansions and late 20th century's welfare reforms. Focusing specifically on federal cash and near-cash programs, it discusses key facets and principles of the current social safety net structure, its impact on children's health and economic well-being, remaining gaps, and promising advances for the future. Temporary improvements to the social safety net enacted as part of the pandemic response indicate important ways in which our public supports can reach more families, more consistently, moving forward. To reduce child poverty, one of the most promising approaches is to enact a national child allowance in the United States. Converting the existing Child Tax Credit into a universal child allowance, making it more generous, and delivering it to families on a regular basis throughout the year can accomplish this goal.

A Universal Child Allowance: A Plan to Reduce Poverty and Income Instability Among Children in the United States.

To reduce child poverty and income instability, and eliminate extreme poverty among families with children in the United States, we propose converting the Child Tax Credit and child tax exemption into a universal, monthly child allowance. Our proposal is based on principles we argue should undergird the design of such policies: universality, accessibility, adequate payment levels, and more generous support for young children. Whether benefits should decline with additional children to reflect economies of scale is a question policymakers should consider. Analyzing 2015 Current Population Survey data, we estimate our proposed child allowance would reduce child poverty by about 40 percent, deep child poverty by nearly half, and would effectively eliminate extreme child poverty. Annual net cost estimates range from $66 billion to $105 billion.

Effects of Financial Incentives on Saving Outcomes and Material Well-Being: Evidence From a Randomized Controlled Trial in Uganda.

The use of savings products to promote financial inclusion has increasingly become a policy priority across sub-Saharan Africa, yet little is known about how families respond to varying levels of savings incentives and whether the promotion of incentivized savings in low-resource settings may encourage households to restrict expenditures on basic needs. Using data from a randomized controlled trial in Uganda, we examine: 1) whether low-income households enrolled in an economic-empowerment intervention consisting of matched savings, workshops, and mentorship reduced spending on basic needs and 2) how varied levels of matching contributions affected household savings and consumption behavior. We compared primary school-attending AIDS-affected children (N = 1,383) randomized to a control condition with two intervention arms with differing savings-match incentives: 1:1 (Bridges) and 1:2 (Bridges PLUS). We found that: 1) 24 months post-intervention initiation, children in Bridges and Bridges PLUS were more likely to have accumulated savings than children in the control condition; 2) higher match incentives (Bridges PLUS) led to higher deposit frequency but not higher savings in the bank; 3) intervention participation did not result in material hardship; and 4) in both intervention arms, participating families were more likely to start a family business and diversify their assets.

Neighborhood Disadvantage and Telomere Length: Results from the Fragile Families Study.

Telomeres are repetitive nucleotide sequences located at the ends of chromosomes that protect genetic material. We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to analyze the relationship between exposure to spatially concentrated disadvantage and telomere length for white and black mothers. We find that neighborhood disadvantage is associated with shorter telomere length for mothers of both races. This finding highlights a potential mechanism through which the unique spatially concentrated disadvantage faced by African Americans contributes to racial health disparities. We conclude that equalizing the health and socioeconomic status of black and white Americans will be very difficult without reducing levels of residential segregation in the United States.

Assets among low-income families in the Great Recession.

This paper examines the association between the Great Recession and real assets among families with young children. Real assets such as homes and cars are key indicators of economic well-being that may be especially valuable to low-income families. Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 4,898), we investigate the association between the city unemployment rate and home and car ownership and how the relationship varies by family structure (married, cohabiting, and single parents) and by race/ethnicity (White, Black, and Hispanic mothers). Using mother fixed-effects models, we find that a one percentage point increase in the unemployment rate is associated with a -0.5 percentage point decline in the probability of home ownership and a -0.7 percentage point decline in the probability of car ownership. We also find that the recession was associated with lower levels of home ownership for cohabiting families and for Hispanic families, as well as lower car ownership among single mothers and among Black mothers, whereas no change was observed among married families or White households. Considering that homes and cars are the most important assets among middle and low-income households in the U.S., these results suggest that the rise in the unemployment rate during the Great Recession may have increased household asset inequality across family structures and race/ethnicities, limiting economic mobility, and exacerbating the cycle of poverty.

Cost-Effectiveness of a Savings-Led Economic Empowerment Intervention for AIDS-Affected Adolescents in Uganda: Implications for Scale-up in Low-Resource Communities.

PURPOSE: Nearly 12 million children and adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa have lost one or both parents to AIDS. Within sub-Saharan Africa, Uganda has been greatly impacted, with an estimated 1.2 million orphaned children, nearly half of which have experienced parental loss due to the epidemic. Cost-effective and scalable interventions are needed to improve developmental outcomes for these children, most of whom are growing up in poverty. This article examines the direct impacts and cost-effectiveness of a savings-led family economic empowerment intervention, Bridges to the Future, that employed varying matched savings incentives to encourage investment in Ugandan children orphaned by AIDS. METHODS: Using data from 48 primary schools in southwestern Uganda, we calculate per-person costs in each of the two treatment arms-Bridges (1:1 match savings) versus Bridges PLUS (1:2 match savings); estimate program effectiveness across outcomes of interest; and provide the ratios of per-person costs to their corresponding effectiveness. RESULTS: At the 24-month postintervention initiation, children in the two treatment arms showed better results in health, mental health, and education when compared to the usual care condition; however, no statistically significant differences were found between treatment arms with the exception of school attendance rates which were higher for those in Bridges PLUS. Owing to the minimal cost difference between the Bridges and Bridges PLUS arms, we did not find substantial cost-effectiveness differences across the two treatment arms. CONCLUSION: After 24 months, an economic intervention that incorporated matched savings yielded positive results on critical development outcomes for adolescents orphaned by AIDS in Uganda. The 1:1 and 1:2 match rates did not demonstrate variable levels of cost-effectiveness at 24-month follow-up, suggesting that governments intending to incorporate savings-led interventions within their social protection frameworks may not need to select a higher match rate to see positive developmental outcomes in the short term. Further research is required to understand intervention impacts and cost-effectiveness after a longer follow-up period.

Geography of intergenerational mobility and child development.

Recent research by Chetty and colleagues finds that children's chances of upward mobility are affected by the communities in which they grow up [Chetty R, Hendren N (2016) Working paper 23002]. However, the developmental pathways through which communities of origin translate into future economic gain are not well understood. In this paper we examine the association between Chetty and Hendren's county-level measure of intergenerational mobility and children's cognitive and behavioral development. Focusing on children from low-income families, we find that growing up in a county with high upward mobility is associated with fewer externalizing behavioral problems by age 3 years and with substantial gains in cognitive test scores between ages 3 and 9 years. Growing up in a county with 1 SD better intergenerational mobility accounts for ∼20% of the gap in developmental outcomes between children from low- and high-income families. Collectively, our findings suggest that the developmental processes through which residential contexts promote upward mobility begin early in childhood and involve the enrichment of both cognitive and social-emotional development.

Cohesive Neighborhoods Where Social Expectations Are Shared May Have Positive Impact On Adolescent Mental Health.

Adolescent mental health problems are associated with poor health and well-being in adulthood. We used data from a cohort of 2,264 children born in large US cities in 1998-2000 to examine whether neighborhood collective efficacy (a combination of social cohesion and control) is associated with improvements in adolescent mental health. We found that children who grew up in neighborhoods with high collective efficacy experienced fewer depressive and anxiety symptoms during adolescence than similar children from neighborhoods with low collective efficacy. The magnitude of this neighborhood effect is comparable to the protective effects of depression prevention programs aimed at general or at-risk adolescent populations. Our findings did not vary by family or neighborhood income, which indicates that neighborhood collective efficacy supports adolescent mental health across diverse populations and urban settings. We recommend a greater emphasis on neighborhood environments in individual mental health risk assessments and greater investment in community-based initiatives that strengthen neighborhood social cohesion and control.

Progress on Poverty? New Estimates of Historical Trends Using an Anchored Supplemental Poverty Measure.

This study examines historical trends in poverty using an anchored version of the U.S. Census Bureau's recently developed Research Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) estimated back to 1967. Although the SPM is estimated each year using a quasi-relative poverty threshold that varies over time with changes in families' expenditures on a core basket of goods and services, this study explores trends in poverty using an absolute, or anchored, SPM threshold. We believe the anchored measure offers two advantages. First, setting the threshold at the SPM's 2012 levels and estimating it back to 1967, adjusted only for changes in prices, is more directly comparable to the approach taken in official poverty statistics. Second, it allows for a better accounting of the roles that social policy, the labor market, and changing demographics play in trends in poverty rates over time, given that changes in the threshold are held constant. Results indicate that unlike official statistics that have shown poverty rates to be fairly flat since the 1960s, poverty rates have dropped by 40 % when measured using a historical anchored SPM over the same period. Results obtained from comparing poverty rates using a pretax/pretransfer measure of resources versus a post-tax/post-transfer measure of resources further show that government policies, not market incomes, are driving the declines observed over time.

Fragile Families in the American Welfare State.

The proportion of children born out of wedlock is now over 40 percent. At birth, about half of these parents are co-habiting. This paper examines data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study (N = 4,271) to describe for the first time the role of welfare state benefits in the economic lives of married, cohabiting, and single parent families with young children. Surprisingly, total welfare state benefits received by the three family types are relatively similar. Nearly half of the full incomes of fragile families come from welfare state transfers. For single parent families the proportion is slightly more than two thirds. Though aggregate welfare state transfers are approximately equal across family type and thus change very little as marital status changes, these transfers and the taxes required to finance them cushion family status changes and substantially narrow the gap in full income between married and fragile families.

Private Financial Transfers, Family Income, and the Great Recession.

Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 4,701; 1998-2010), the authors studied whether the unemployment rate was associated with private financial transfers (PFTs) among urban families with young children and whether family income moderated these associations. They found that an increase in the unemployment rate was associated with greater PFT receipt and that family income moderated the association. Poor and near-poor mothers experienced increases in PFT receipt when unemployment rates were high, whereas mothers with incomes between 2 and 3 times the poverty threshold experienced decreases. Simulations estimating the impact of the Great Recession suggest that moving from 5% to 10% unemployment is associated with a 9-percentage-point increase in the predicted probability of receiving a PFT for the sample as a whole, with greater increases in predicted probabilities among poor and near poor mothers.

The prevalence and economic value of doubling up.

"Doubling up" (living with relatives or nonkin) is a common source of support for low-income families, yet no study to date has estimated its economic value relative to other types of public and private support. Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we examine the prevalence and economic value of doubling up among families with young children living in large American cities. We find that doubling up is a very important part of the private safety net in the first few years of a child's life, with nearly 50 % of mothers reporting at least one instance of doubling up by the time their child is 9 years old. The estimated rental savings from doubling up is significant and comparable in magnitude to other public and private transfers.

The Great Recession, genetic sensitivity, and maternal harsh parenting.

Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, this study examined the effects of the Great Recession on maternal harsh parenting. We found that changes in macroeconomic conditions, rather than current conditions, affected harsh parenting, that declines in macroeconomic conditions had a stronger impact on harsh parenting than improvements in conditions, and that mothers' responses to adverse economic conditions were moderated by the DRD2 Taq1A genotype. We found no evidence of a moderating effect for two other, less well-studied SNPs from the DRD4 and DAT1 genes.

Paternal incarceration and support for children in fragile families.

High U.S. incarceration rates have motivated recent research on the negative effects of imprisonment on later employment, earnings, and family relationships. Because most men in jail and prison are fathers, a large number of children may be placed at considerable risk by policies of incarceration. This article examines one dimension of the economic risk faced by children of incarcerated fathers: the reduction in the financial support that they receive. We use a population-based sample of urban children to examine the effects of incarceration on this support. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal regressions indicate that formerly incarcerated men are less likely to contribute to their families, and those who do contribute provide significantly less. The negative effects of incarceration on fathers' financial support are due not only to the low earnings of formerly incarcerated men but also to their increased likelihood to live apart from their children. Men contribute far less through child support (formal or informal) than they do when they share their earnings within their household, suggesting that the destabilizing effects of incarceration on family relationships place children at significant economic disadvantage.

Child support enforcement and fathers' contributions to their nonmarital children.

This study examines the total package of child support that mothers receive from the nonresident fathers of their children, by focusing on three components of total support: formal cash, informal cash, and in-kind support. Using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, this article considers how contributions change over time and the effects of child support enforcement on these contributions. Findings suggest that total cash support received drops precipitously over the first 15 months of living apart (as informal support drops off) and then increases slightly after 45 months (as the increase in formal support overtakes the decrease in informal support). While the study finds no effect of enforcement on total support received in the first 5 years after a nonmarital birth, the substantial differences in total cash support received by the length of time that parents have not been cohabiting suggest that strong enforcement may be efficacious over time.