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This article conducts a benefit-cost analysis of a child allowance. Through a systematic literature review of the highest quality evidence on the causal effects of cash and near-cash transfers, this article produces core estimates on the benefits and costs per child and per adult of increasing household income by $1000, which can be used for any cash or near-cash program that increases household income. We then apply these estimates to three child allowance proposals, with the main proposal converting the $2000 Child Tax Credit in the federal income tax code into a fully refundable and more generous child allowance of $3600 per child ages 0–5 and $3000 per child ages 6–17, as enacted for 1 year in the American Rescue Plan. Aggregate costs and benefits are estimated via micro-simulation. Our estimates indicate that making the $2000 Child Tax Credit fully refundable and increasing benefits to $3000/$3600 would cost $97 billion per year and generate social benefits of $929 billion per year. Sensitivity analyses indicate that the results are robust to alternative assumptions and that each of the three child allowance proposals produces a very strong to an extraordinarily strong return for the U.S. population.

Children born to unmarried parents make up an increasing share of American children. But official poverty statistics provide little insight into their economic well-being because these statistics use an outdated definition of the family unit and an incomplete measure of family resources. Using Current Population Survey data and an improved measure of poverty, the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure, we reassess long-term trends in poverty for children in unmarried parent families—those led by single mothers, those led by single fathers, and those led by cohabiting couples—as opposed to their counterparts in married couple families. We find that single-mother families have the highest poverty rates among families, both historically and today, but the improved measure shows much larger declines in single-mother families’ poverty rates over time. Single-father and cohabiting families also have high poverty rates, but those rates have also fallen by approximately one third since the 1960s.

Child support is a key resource for children living apart from their fathers, yet little is known about how child support changes over the course of childhood, particularly for different ty...

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.

Highlights • State social policy benefits vary across states in terms of generosity and inclusiveness. • Adopting the most generous state EITC policy would reduce child poverty by up to 1.2 percentage points. • If all states were as generous as the most generous state in each of four policies – EITC, CTC, SNAP and TANF – child poverty would fall by 2.5 percentage points. • A 2.5 percentage point decline in child poverty is equivalent to nearly 5.5M children., State approaches to reducing child poverty vary considerably. We exploit this state-level variation to estimate what could be achieved in terms of child poverty if all states adopted the most generous or inclusive states’ policies. Specifically, we simulate the child poverty reductions that would occur if every state were as generous or inclusive as the most generous or inclusive state in four key policies: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), state Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and state Child Tax Credits (CTC). We find that adopting the most generous or inclusive state EITC policy would have the largest impact on child poverty, reducing it by 1.2 percentage points, followed by SNAP, TANF, and lastly state CTC. If all states were as generous or inclusive as the most generous or inclusive state in all four policies, the child poverty rate would decrease by 2.5 percentage points, and five and a half million children would be lifted out of poverty.

This article examines the state of social work scholarship in contemporary social policy using three illustrative domains: antipoverty policy, child welfare policy, and health policy. We ar...

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.

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.

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.

The U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics recently developed a substantially improved measure of poverty, the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). The SPM has only been released since 2009, and prior efforts by researchers to construct a historical SPM time series have not taken into account an essential element of the new measure - geographical differences in the cost of living - which is necessary for accurately describing poverty trends in important demographic and regional subgroups. We build the first historical SPM time series from 1967-2014 that adjusts poverty thresholds for cost of living. We do so bringing together a constellation of data sources - the Current Population Survey, the Decennial Census, the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Fair Market Rents, and others. We find that geographically adjusting thresholds increases poverty rates in metro areas, the Western states, and among Latinos, but decreases poverty rates in non-metro areas and in the South. The geographic adjustment of poverty thresholds is an impactful component of the SPM.

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.

L’article trace l’évolution des politiques de lutte contre la pauvreté depuis 1965. Il décrit ensuite, statistiques à l’appui, les effets des politiques de transferts de revenu sur la pauvreté, l’insécurité et l’inégalité économique, puis sur le travail, l’épargne et la famille. Il établit que les politiques de transferts de revenu ont contribué à réduire la pauvreté et les inégalités mais qu’elles n’ont eu qu’un effet palliatif et provisoire. Elles n’ont pas réussi à augmenter la participation des pauvres au marché du travail. Promouvoir une telle participation exige une intervention sur plusieurs fronts : l’éducation, la qualification professionnelle, les politiques de soutien du revenu, etc. Aucune formule simple ou appliquée de façon isolée ne peut avoir d’impact significatif sur le problème. Les auteurs formulent une série de propositions susceptibles de renforcer la lutte contre la pauvreté., This article describes the development of anti-poverty policy since 1965 and attempts to analyse the effects of public income transfers on poverty, economic insecurity and inequality, on the work effort and on savings and family structure. The authors conclude that public income transfers have been able to reduce poverty and economic inequality but that they have an essentially palliative, as opposed to curative effect. They have not had a significant effect on labour market participation by the poor. Securing full participation of the poor in economic life requires a long-run effort and involves improving their employability and expanding education opportunities for their children, changing labour markets, providing social and job-related services, transitional income, employment, and in-kind support, and a growing economy. No simple formula—no single isolated policy measure is likely to make a substantial dent in the extent of the problem. The authors conclude by suggesting some future directions for anti-poverty policy in the U.S., El artículo presenta la evolución de las políticas de las luchas contra la pobreza desde 1965, y describe luego, con el apoyo de estadísticas, los efectos de las políticas de transferencia de ingresos sobre la pobreza, sobre la inseguridad y la desigualdad económicas, y luego sobre el trabajo, el ahorro y la familia. Se establece así que las políticas de transferencia de ingresos han contribuido a reducir la pobreza y las desigualdades, pero que su efecto solo ha sido paliativo y provisorio, ya que no han conseguido aumentar la participación de los pobres en el mercado de trabajo. Promover una tal participación exigiría una intervención que actuara sobre varios frentes a la vez: la educación, la calificación profesional, las políticas de apoyo al ingreso, etc. Ninguna fórmula simple o aplicada aisladamente podrá tener un impacto significativo sobre el problema. Los autores formulan una serie de proposiciones, susceptibles de reforzar la lucha contra la pobreza.

Recent research using an improved measure of poverty finds that poverty has fallen by nearly forty percent since the 1960s in the United States. But past research has not examined whether this finding holds across detailed demographic groups who might be more or less vulnerable to poverty. This paper helps fill that gap, focusing on one such vulnerable subgroup: young adults. Using the Current Population Survey, this paper examines long-term trends in young adult poverty in comparison to other groups. In contrast to almost all other groups, young adults have seen no decrease in poverty since the 1960s. We explore potential reasons for this fact, finding that young adults lack access to benefits from government programs, and are increasingly unmarried, living alone, and disconnected from the labor market, factors that leave young adults more vulnerable than other groups to poverty. The findings have implications for how antipoverty policies might assist this vulnerable group.

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.

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.

We investigate the impacts of the dramatic increases in state unemployment rates that accompanied the Great Recession on the health of women with children using the last two waves of the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study. We focus on a wide range of physical and mental health outcomes, as well as health behaviors. Our findings from individual fixed effects models suggest heterogeneous impacts across demographic and socioeconomic groups. While a rise in the unemployment rate worsened the physical and mental health, and increased the likelihood of smoking and using drugs for disadvantaged women (minorities, unmarried, and those with low education), the crisis may have actually improved the mental health of more advantaged women (Whites, marrieds, and high education) as well as improving their physical health in some respects: Whites were less likely to be obese and highly educated mothers were less likely to have health problems. High unemployment rates also increased the odds of smoking and drinking for more educated and White women. Our results confirm the importance of controlling for individual fixed effects to identify the causal impact of unemployment as well as the importance of considering heterogeneous impacts across groups.

Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey and the March Current Population Survey, we provide poverty estimates for 1967 to 2012 based on a historical Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). During this period, poverty, as officially measured, has stagnated. However, the official poverty measure (OPM) does not account for the effect of near-cash transfers on the financial resources available to families, an important omission since such transfers have become an increasingly important part of government anti-poverty policy. Applying the historical SPM, which does count such transfers, we find that trends in poverty have been more favorable than the OPM suggests and that government policies have played an important and growing role in reducing poverty-a role that is not evident when the OPM is used to assess poverty. We also find that government programs have played a particularly important role in alleviating child poverty and deep poverty, especially during economic downturns.

From December 2007 until June 2009, the United States experienced the Great Recession, its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression (Grusky, Western, & Wimer, 2011; National Bureau of Economic Research, 2010). The level of unemployment increased dramatically during this period, from approximately 5% to 10% in the country as a whole, although certain subgroups and geographic areas experienced particularly high levels (Hout, Levanon, & Cumberworth, 2011). Low-income families were one subgroup especially vulnerable to the poor economic conditions; estimates from the Current Population Survey indicate that unemployment rates in the lowest income decile were as high as 31% from October to December 2009 and were nearly 20% in the second lowest income decile (Sum & Khatiwada, 2010). Because the Great Recession was associated with such high levels of unemployment, especially among economically disadvantaged families, it is critical to understand how families in general, and low-income families in particular, manage to support themselves when unemployment levels are high and aggregate economic conditions are poor. Prior research has found that private financial transfers (PFTs), defined as financial support provided to the mother by anyone other than the child’s father, are a relatively common and potentially important source of income, particularly for families with young children. Research has found that PFTs are the most common source of private support for families with young children and are worth approximately 15% of mother’s earnings, suggesting PFTs are an important component of families’ income package (Pilkauskas & Alvarado-Urbina, 2014). In addition, studies have shown that PFTs are wealth enhancing for families with children (Hao, 1996) and are a key economic resource that helps low-income mothers make ends meet (Edin & Lein, 1997; Teitler, Reichman, & Nepomnyaschy, 2004). As a result, one way that families with young children may deal with bad aggregate economic conditions (and the increased need that they produce), like those experienced during the Great Recession, is to increase PFTs received from family members and nonrelatives. If, however, members of their network were also negatively affected by the poor economic conditions, network members may not have the means to provide families with children with PFTs. Thus, it is also possible that PFTs received tend to decrease when rates of unemployment are high. Determining whether families with young children are able to rely on an increase in PFT receipt when economic conditions are bad is critical because a long line of research has demonstrated that family income, and in particular family income in early childhood, is an important predictor of a wide range of outcomes for children (Brooks-Gunn & Duncan, 1997). In this study, we investigated three research questions. First, what is the association between the unemployment rate and PFT receipt among urban families with young children? Second, does family income moderate the association between the unemployment rate and PFTs received for this population? Third, how does the predicted probability of PFT receipt differ when the unemployment rate is at 5% (its level before the start of the Great Recession) compared to the peak unemployment rate during the Great Recession (10%)? Although prior research has studied whether aggregate unemployment is associated with the percentage of household income made up by PFTs (Haider & McGarry, 2006), no research has used longitudinal data (including families prior to, and during, the Great Recession), or studied families with young children in particular. In addition, no research has investigated differences in the association between the unemployment rate and PFTs by family income. This is an important oversight because evidence suggests that low-income families may have been particularly vulnerable to the Great Recession (Sum & Khatiwada, 2010). Even with this greater need, it is unclear that PFT receipt among low-income families will increase in poor economic conditions: The networks of low-income mothers may not have the economic resources necessary to provide PFTs as compared with higher income families. Last, no research has studied the impact of the Great Recession on PFTs by exploring the predicted probability of PFT receipt at different unemployment rates consistent with pre- and peak recession levels. To address these questions, we used data from the first five waves of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (hereafter Fragile Families; see www.fragilefamilies.princeton.edu/), covering the years 1998–2010. These longitudinal data were particularly well suited to this research because they provide significant variation in the unemployment rate over time, in particular because the latest wave of data collection occurred during the Great Recession. These data also include an oversample of unmarried births, resulting in a relatively economically disadvantaged sample, making it possible to study heterogeneity in the association between the unemployment rate and PFTs by family income levels.

Programs that aim to improve the lives of children from disadvantaged backgrounds are facing a challenge. On the one hand, scholars and policy makers agree that we must invest in children to secure our country's future and to promote educational and economic opportunity, suggesting that we should expand programs for children, especially during early childhood. (1) On the other hand, there is a growing sense in some quarters that existing programs for children are not working as well as they could. A few widely cited models, such as Perry Preschool and the Abecedarian Project, have demonstrated that high-quality programs can make a big difference in children's lives. (2) The children who participated in these programs have shown long-term gains in educational attainment, employment, and earnings relative to their peers, and those who participated in Perry Preschool had lower rates of arrest. The evidence from larger-scale efforts, such as Head Start and some state prekindergarten programs, is less clear-cut. On the one hand, numerous assessments of Head Start, the nation's largest preschool program, which enrolls about 900,000 mostly disadvantaged children, have found improvements in children's test scores, as well as their rates of high school graduation, college attendance, and delinquency, especially among children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Similarly, assessments of state prekindergarten programs, which have a much shorter history than Head Start, have found that in elementary school, the participants--especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds--had better language skills and were less likely to repeat a grade or be suspended. (3) On the other hand, a recent randomized trial of Head Start found that the test score gains children experienced at the end of the program typically faded by the end of kindergarten. (4) And a well-executed evaluation of a preschool intervention in Tennessee found a similar fade-out by the end of first grade. (5) It's not unusual for gains in cognitive test scores to fade--the same phenomenon occurred in the Perry Preschool and Abecedarian projects. Still, the recent Head Start and Tennessee evaluations have caused some people to doubt the efficacy of early childhood education and of universal prekindergarten more broadly. (6) Although it's too early to assess the long-term benefits of the new prekindergarten programs, it's hard to be optimistic that current programs can boost poor children's development enough to overcome the huge divide in educational achievement and economic opportunity between children from poor families and children from economically secure families. The United States has experienced a dramatic increase in income inequality over the past four decades, which, not surprisingly, has been accompanied by a growing income gap in children's test scores. (7) So even if the $30 billion or so that the federal and state governments spend on preschool programs and the $640 billion the nation spends on public education are having large effects, they are not large enough to compensate for the growing gap in achievement between children from high- and low-income families. (8) The school problems of poor children stem in large part from the home environment. Numerous studies show that parents and the home environment they provide exert a continuing influence on children as they grow up. (9) Betty Hart and Todd Risley, in their well-known study from nearly two decades ago, found major differences in the home language environments provided by poor and more affluent parents. They estimate that the average child on welfare is exposed to 62,000 words per week at home, compared with 125,000 words per week for more privileged children. (10) Similarly, based on the large sample of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Meredith Phillips shows very large differences, all of them favoring children from more affluent families, in time spent in conversation with adults, in primary caregivers' verbal responsiveness, and in time spent in literary activities. …

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.

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.

Economic downturns lead to lost income and increased poverty. Although high unemployment almost certainly also increases material hardship and government transfers likely decrease hardship, the first relationship is not yet documented and the second is poorly understood. This study uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the associations of unemployment, government transfers, and material hardship. The Fragile Families study collected the latest wave of data during the Great Recession, the worst recession since the Great Depression. The data provide a unique opportunity to examine how high unemployment affects the well-being of low-income families. This study finds that the unemployment rate is associated with increased overall material hardship, difficulty paying bills, having utilities disconnected, and increased usage of welfare, food stamps, unemployment insurance, and Medicaid. If not for food stamps, food hardship during the Great Recession might have increased by tw...

Child care and early education policies may not only raise average achievement but may also be of special benefit for less advantaged children, in particular if programs are high quality. We test whether high quality child care is equalizing using rich longitudinal data from two comparison countries, Denmark and the United States. In Denmark, we find that enrollment in high-quality formal care at age 3 is associated with higher cognitive scores at age 11. Moreover, the findings suggest stronger effects for the lowest-income children and for children at the bottom of the test score distribution. In the U.S. case, results are different. We find that enrollment in school or center based care is associated with higher cognitive scores at school entry, but the beneficial effects erode by age 11, particularly for disadvantaged children. Thus, the U.S. results do not point to larger and more lasting effects for disadvantaged children. This may be because low income children attend poorer quality care and subsequently attend lower quality schools.

High rates of incarceration among American men, coupled with high rates of fatherhood among men in prison, have motivated recent research on the effects of parental imprisonment on children’s development. We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the relationship between paternal incarceration and developmental outcomes for approximately 3,000 urban children. We estimate cross-sectional and longitudinal regression models that control not only for fathers’ basic demographic characteristics and a rich set of potential confounders, but also for several measures of pre-incarceration child development and family fixed effects. We find significant increases in aggressive behaviors and some evidence of increased attention problems among children whose fathers are incarcerated. The estimated effects of paternal incarceration are stronger than those of other forms of father absence, suggesting that children with incarcerated fathers may require specialized support from caretakers, teachers, and social service providers. The estimated effects are stronger for children who lived with their fathers prior to incarceration but are also significant for children of nonresident fathers, suggesting that incarceration places children at risk through family hardships including and beyond parent-child separation.

Most studies of human molecular genetics and social environment interactions on health have relied heavily on the classic diathesis-stress model that treats genetic variations and environments as being either “risky” or “protective.” The biological susceptibility model posits that some individuals have greater genetic reactivity to stress, leading to worse outcomes in poor environments, but better outcomes in rich environments. Using a nontruncated measure of a chronic environmental stressor—socioeconomic status—measured by education, and two polymorphisms (5-HTTLPR and STin2 VNTR) of the serotonin transporter gene ( 5-HTT ), we find strong evidence that some women are genetically more reactive to the environment, resulting in a crossover of risks of postpartum depression for the most reactive groups. We discuss how our approach and findings provide a framework for understanding some of the confusion in the gene-environment interaction literature on stress, 5-HTT , and depression.

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.

Summary Using recent national household survey data and a propensity score matching method, this study examines the effects of urban China’s primary public assistance program—Minimum Living Standard Assistance (MLSA)—on family expenditures, an important yet understudied indicator of family material well-being. We find that families receiving MLSA prioritized human capital investment (i.e., paying for education and health) rather than making the ends meet (e.g., paying for food, clothing, rent, and utilities). The policy implications of these findings are discussed.

Objective. Using a population-based, longitudinal family survey (N=4,898), we identify economic, residential, and developmental risks particular to the children of incarcerated parents. Methods. We use parental reports of incarceration history, demographic background, and a rich set of child and family outcomes, in a series of multivariate regression models. Results. Children of incarcerated parents face more economic and residential instability than their counterparts. Sons of incarcerated fathers display more behavior problems, though other developmental differences are insignificant. Conclusions. We find that incarceration identifies families facing severe hardship that cannot be explained by other observed family characteristics. Given the prevalence of incarceration, our findings suggest that a large population of children suffers unmet material needs, residential instability, and behavior problems. These risks may be best addressed by using the point of incarceration as an opportunity for intervention and the administration of age-appropriate social services.

Since its inception 15 years ago, the Minimum Living Standard Assistance (MLSA) has served as a last resort for China's urban poor. Using national household survey data, this study provides updated evidence on the participation rate, receipt amount, and anti-poverty effectiveness of MLSA. Families eligible for MLSA make up 2.3 percent of the urban population, but only about half of them are actual beneficiaries. City MLSA generosity and household entitled benefit amount both positively correlate with participation rate and household receipt amount. MLSA lowers the poverty rate somewhat, but substantially reduces the poverty gap and severity for its eligible participants. Nevertheless, the poverty reduction role of MLSA is restricted by its partial coverage and delivery. Consequentially, poverty remains a serious problem for MLSA's target population. The anti-poverty effectiveness of MLSA can be strengthened by full coverage and delivery of benefits and by paying special attention to disadvantaged subgroups.

We present new estimates of unwed fathers’ ability to pay child support. Prior research relied on surveys that drastically undercounted nonresident unwed fathers and provided no link to their children who lived in separate households. To overcome these limitations, previous research assumed assortative mating and that each mother partnered with one father who was actually eligible to pay support and had no other child support obligations. Because the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study contains data on couples, multiple-partner fertility, and a rich array of other previously unmeasured characteristics of fathers, it is uniquely suited to address the limitations of previous research. We also use an improved method of dealing with missing data. Our findings suggest that previous research overestimated the aggregate ability of unwed nonresident fathers to pay child support by 33% to 60%.

Some scholars have suggested that a negative consequence of strengthening child support enforcement is to encourage fathers to shift from regular sector to underground employment. We employ data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to investigate the relationship between the strength of child support enforcement (CSE) and levels of underground and regular sector employment among unmarried fathers. We find that, in general, living in a city with stricter CSE is associated with fewer hours of underground employment. We find little evidence that stronger enforcement is associated with employment or hours in the regular sector. © 2007 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

In this article, we review what has been learned to date from the first 5 years of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study about child support, fatherhood, and marriage. The article first describes the parents’ circumstances at the time of the child’s birth, then examines the trajectories of parents’ relationships (with each other and others), fathers’ financial contributions and other indicators of fathers’ involvement with their children 5 years later; and finally reviews what has been learned about the effect of child support enforcement on these three aspects of families’ lives. We find that most unmarried parents are either cohabiting or romantically involved at the time of the child’s birth, but are a distinctly disadvantaged group as compared with married parents. Five years later, most of these parents are no longer romantically involved, however, most of the fathers are still seeing their children on a regular basis, and about half are contributing either formally or informally to their support. Strong child support enforcement appears to increase formal and decrease informal support from fathers, reduce marriage among parents, and have a weak positive effect on father involvement. More research is necessary to understand whether these findings are robust over time and across samples of unmarried parents.

The New York City (NYC) Longitudinal Study of Wellbeing, or "Poverty Tracker," is a survey of approximately 2300 NYC residents. Its purpose is to provide a multidimensional and dynamic understanding of economic disadvantage in NYC. Measures of disadvantage were collected at baseline and a 12-month follow-up, and include 3 types of disadvantage: 1) income poverty, using a measure on the basis of the new Supplemental Poverty Measure; 2) material hardship, including indicators of food insecurity, housing hardship, unmet medical needs, utility cutoffs, and financial insecurity; and 3) adult health problems, which can drain family time and resources. In this article initial results for NYC families with children younger than the age of 18 years are presented. At baseline, 56% of families with children had 1 or more type of disadvantage, including 28% with income poverty, 39% with material hardship, and 17% with an adult health problem. Even among nonpoor families, 33% experienced material hardship and 14% reported an adult health problem. Two-thirds of all families faced disadvantage at either baseline or follow-up, with 46% experiencing some kind of disadvantage at both time points. Respondents with a college education were much less likely to face disadvantage. Even after adjusting for educational attainment and family characteristics, the families of black and Hispanic respondents had increased rates of disadvantage. Considering income poverty alone the extent of disadvantage among families with children in NYC is greatly understated. These results suggest that in addition to addressing income poverty, policymakers should give priority to efforts to reduce material hardship and help families cope with chronic physical or mental illness. The need for these resources extends far above the poverty line.

Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey and the March Current Population Survey, we provide poverty estimates for 1967 to 2012 based on a historical Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). During this period, poverty, as officially measured, has stagnated. However, the official poverty measure (OPM) does not account for the effect of near-cash transfers on the financial resources available to families, an important omission since such transfers have become an increasingly important part of government anti-poverty policy. Applying the historical SPM, which does count such transfers, we find that trends in poverty have been more favorable than the OPM suggests and that government policies have played an important and growing role in reducing poverty—a role that is not evident when the OPM is used to assess poverty. We also find that government programs have played a particularly important role in alleviating child poverty and deep poverty, especially during economic downturns.

The proportion of children born out of wedlock is now over 40%. At birth, about half of these parents are co-habiting. This paper examines data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study (N = 4271) 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.

The association between family structure instability and children’s life chances is well documented, with children reared in stable, two-parent families experiencing more favorable outcomes than children reared in other family arrangements. This study extends prior research by distinguishing between father-entrances into and father-exits from the household, by distinguishing between the entrance of a biological father and a social-father, and by testing for interactions between family structure instability and children’s age, gender and genetic characteristics. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (n=2493) and focusing on changes in family structure between birth and age 9, we find that father-exits are associated with increases in children’s anti-social behavior, which is a strong predictor of health and wellbeing in adulthood. The pattern for father-entrances is more complicated, with biological father entrances being associated with lower anti-social behavior among boys, and social-father entrances being associated with higher anti-social behavior among boys with certain genetic variants. Child’s age at the time of family change does not moderate the association with children’s behavior. However, incorporating genetic information into our models sharpens the findings substantially, showing how such data can enrich our understanding of the intergenerational mobility process.

Previous studies find large crossnational differences in inequality amongst rich Western nations, due in large part to differences in the generosity of welfare state transfers. The United States is the least generous nation and the one having the most aftertax and transfer inequality. But these analyses are limited to the effects of cash and nearcash transfers and direct taxes on incomes, while on average, half of welfare state transfers in rich nations are inkind benefits—health insurance, education, and other services. Counting inkind benefits at government cost and accounting for the indirect taxes used to finance transfers substantially reduces crossnational differences in inequality at the bottom of the income distribution. The findings have implications for how we think about tradeoffs across welfare state domains that all nations face and we illustrate this with reference to the current U.S. debate about health insurance. © 2006 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management