Biological Poverty Line for Infants-Evidence and Implications.

This Viewpoint discusses whether protective and promotive interventions in brain development would benefit from identification of a "biological poverty line" during pregnancy and early childhood, above which the brain is informed and enhanced by experience in positive ways, and below which adverse experiences may influence the brain in ways that do not support long-term health trajectories.

Impact of federal transfers upon US infant mortality rates: a secondary analysis using a fixed effects regression approach.

OBJECTIVES: In order to improve health outcomes, the federal government allocates hundreds of billions of annual dollars to individual states in order to further the well-being of its citizens. This study examines the impact of such federal intergovernmental transfers on reducing state-level infant mortality rates. SETTING: Annual data are collected from all 50 US states between 2004 and 2013. PARTICIPANTS: Entire US population under the age of 1 year between 2004 and 2013. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: State-level infant mortality rate, neonatal mortality rate and postneonatal mortality rate. RESULTS: Using a fixed effects regression model to control for unmeasurable differences between states, the impact of federal transfers on state-level infant mortality rates is estimated. After controlling for differences across states, increases in per capita federal transfers are significantly associated with lower infant, neonatal and postneonatal mortality rates. Holding all other variables constant, a $200 increase in the amount of federal transfers per capita would save one child's life for every 10 000 live births. CONCLUSIONS: Considerable debate exists regarding the role of federal transfers in improving the well-being of children and families. These findings indicate that increases in federal transfers are strongly associated with reductions in infant mortality rates. Such benefits should be carefully considered when state officials are deciding whether to accept or reject federal funds.

The Likelihood of Experiencing Relative Poverty over the Life Course.

Research on poverty in the United States has largely consisted of examining cross-sectional levels of absolute poverty. In this analysis, we focus on understanding relative poverty within a life course context. Specifically, we analyze the likelihood of individuals falling below the 20th percentile and the 10th percentile of the income distribution between the ages of 25 and 60. A series of life tables are constructed using the nationally representative Panel Study of Income Dynamics data set. This includes panel data from 1968 through 2011. Results indicate that the prevalence of relative poverty is quite high. Consequently, between the ages of 25 to 60, 61.8 percent of the population will experience a year below the 20th percentile, and 42.1 percent will experience a year below the 10th percentile. Characteristics associated with experiencing these levels of poverty include those who are younger, nonwhite, female, not married, with 12 years or less of education, or who have a work disability.

The life course dynamics of affluence.

Social science research finds that the only group to have experienced real economic gains over the past four decades is the top 20 percent of the income distribution. This finding, along with greater awareness of growing inequality, has renewed interest in mobility research that identifies how individuals and their progeny move into and out of upper versus lower income categories. In this study a new mobility methodology is proposed using life course concepts and life table statistical techniques. Panel data from a prospective national sample of the U.S. population age 25 to 60 are analyzed to estimate the extent of mobility associated with top percentiles in the income distribution. Empirical results suggest high mobility associated with top-level income. For example, 11 percent of the population is found to occupy the top one percentile for one or more years between the ages of 25 and 60. The study findings suggest that many experience short-term and/or intermittent mobility into top-level income, versus a smaller set that persist within top-level income over many consecutive years. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of inequality buffering, opportunity versus insecurity, and the demographics of income inequality.

A Life Course Approach to Understanding Poverty Among Older American Adults.

A relatively new strategy for studying the prevalence of poverty in America is to analyze it as a potential life course event. We use such an approach in order to examine the likelihood of both income and asset poverty for individuals between the ages of 60 and 90. Nearly half of all elderly Americans will encounter at least one year of poverty or near poverty across these ages. In addition, 58 percent of those between the ages of 60 and 84 will at some point fail to have enough liquid assets to allow them to weather an unanticipated expense or downturn in income. The policy and practice implications of these findings are discussed.

The risk of developing a work disability across the adulthood years.

BACKGROUND: Work disability has implications for individual health, national health care expenditures, economic productivity, and the social safety net. Knowledge about population dynamics and risk factors associated with work disability are not delineated by cross-sectional research. OBJECTIVE: In this paper the authors estimate, for the first time, the prospective lifetime risk that a head of household will report a work disability. METHODS: Using forty years of longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), we estimate the lifetime risk of developing a work disability and conduct a logistic regression analysis to examine personal characteristics that increase the likelihood of a self-reported work disability. Life table methods are used to calculate lifetime prevalence, and to compute covariate effects. RESULTS: Between the ages of 25 and 60, over half (54.6%) of U.S. household heads will self-report a work disability, and approximately one quarter (24.1%) will self-report a severe work disability. Persons with income below 150% of the federal poverty level, or lower educational attainment, have an increased likelihood of reporting a work disability. CONCLUSIONS: This study finds that more than half of U.S. household heads will self-report a work disability, which is a higher prevalence than in existing cross-sectional estimates. The social context for this finding is that work disability is a major driver of spending on health care services and the social safety net.

Estimating the risk of food stamp use and impoverishment during childhood.

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the lifetime risk that an American child will reside in a household receiving food stamps and, as a result, will encounter poverty and a heightened exposure to food insecurity. DESIGN: Thirty years of longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics survey data set. SETTING: Nationally representative sample of the US population. PARTICIPANTS: Approximately 90 000 childhood years of information are pooled together to create a series of life tables that span the ages of 1 to 20 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Self-reporting measure of whether survey households received the Food Stamp Program during the prior year. RESULTS: Between the ages of 1 to 20 years, nearly half (49.2%) of all American children will, at some point, reside in a household that receives food stamps. Households in need of the program use it for relatively short periods but are also likely to return to the program at several points during the childhood years. Race, parental education, and head of household's marital status exert a strong influence on the proportion of children residing in a food stamp household. CONCLUSIONS: American children are at a high risk of encountering a spell during which their families are in poverty and food insecure as indicated through their use of food stamps. Such events have the potential to seriously jeopardize a child's overall health.

The increasing risk of poverty across the American life course.

This article extends the emerging body of life course research on poverty by empirically identifying the incidence, chronicity, and age pattern of American poverty and how these dimensions have changed during the period 1968-2000. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we construct a series of life tables that estimate the risk of poverty for adults during their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s, and compare these estimates for Americans in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Our empirical results suggest that the risk of acute poverty increased substantially, particularly in the 1990s. This observed increase was especially pronounced for individuals in their 20s, 30s, and 40s; for all age groups with respect to extreme poverty; and for white males. On the other hand, the risk of chronic poverty declined during the 1990s (as measured by the percentage of the poor who experienced five or more years of poverty within a 10-year interval). The results in this article tell a very different story than the Census Bureau's yearly cross-sectional rates, which have shown little overall change in the U.S. poverty rate during this 30-year period. In contrast, a life course approach reveals a rising economic risk of acute poverty for individuals, one that is consistent with recent observations and research suggesting that a growing number of Americans will eventually find themselves in an economically precarious position.

Likelihood of using food stamps during the adulthood years.

OBJECTIVE: The Food Stamp Program represents the cornerstone of the federal nutrition assistance safety net. This article estimates the likelihood that Americans will use such food assistance at some point during their adulthood. The probability and duration of food stamp use are estimated for the population as a whole and for differences in race, education, and gender. Based on these food stamp percentages, a lower boundary is also estimated with regard to the life course risk of food insecurity. DESIGN, SETTING, AND ANALYSIS: Thirty waves (1968 to 1997) of the nationally representative Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data set were merged for analysis. Food stamp use is defined as an individual being in a household that has used the Food Stamp Program at some point during the year. Approximately 260 000 person-years of information on food stamp use are analyzed using both life table techniques and logit modeling. RESULTS: Between the ages of 20 and 65, slightly over half (50.8%) of all Americans will, at some point, receive food stamps. Use of the program takes place over relatively short periods of time but typically recurs at several points in the life course. Race and education exert a profound influence on the odds of program participation. Based on the life course patterns of food stamp use, it is estimated that at least 42% of the American population will experience food insecurity at some point between the ages of 20 and 65. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: The overall life course patterns reveal a substantial need and use of food stamps within the US population. These results also suggest a significant risk of food insecurity across the life course. The implications for nutritionists are discussed.

Welfare use as a life course event: toward a new understanding of the U.S. safety net.

What proportion of the American population uses a social safety net program during the course of adulthood? To address this question, we constructed a series of life tables using 30 years of longitudinal data. Our results indicate that two-thirds of Americans between the ages of 20 and 65 will at some point reside in a household that receives benefits from a means-tested welfare program (food stamps, Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, or other cash welfare). Such assistance is often in the form of in-kind programs, such as food stamps or Medicaid. The findings also indicate that the use of welfare tends to take place over fairly short intervals of time. For example, although 65 percent of Americans will use welfare by age 65, only 15.9 percent will do so for five or more consecutive years. However, once the use of welfare occurs, it is quite likely to occur again at some point during adulthood. Our results suggest that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the use of the United States social safety net is a mainstream experience.