Out of Poverty
Long-term Outcomes of Childhood Family Income Supplements on Adult Functioning
William Copeland et al.
JAMA Pediatrics, October 2022, Pages 1020-1026
Design, Setting, and Participants: This community-representative longitudinal cohort study set in western North Carolina assessed 1266 participants aged 9, 11, and 13 years at intake up to 11 times up to age 30 years from January 1993 to December 2015. Data were analyzed from January to December 2021.
Exposures: In 1996, a southeastern American Indian tribe implemented a cash transfer program of approximately $5000 annually per person for tribal members. Participants were compared on whether their family ever received the cash transfers (American Indian vs non-American Indian), the duration of the transfers, and annual amount based on the number of parents.
Results: Of 1266 included participants, 320 (25.3%) were American Indian and 581 (49.7%) were female. Participants whose families received cash transfers during childhood reported fewer anxiety symptoms (relative risk [RR], 0.33; 95% CI, 0.25-0.44), depressive symptoms (RR, 0.51; 95% CI, 0.42-0.62), and cannabis symptoms (RR, 0.47; 95% CI, 0.27-0.82). They also reported improved physical health (RR, 0.66; 95% CI, 0.55-0.80) and financial functioning (RR, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.67-0.89) and fewer risky or illegal behaviors (RR, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.46-0.72) compared with those who did not receive the cash transfer. This pattern was supported by a series of heterogeneity analyses in which children whose families received the transfers for the longest duration and whose families received the largest transfer (due to having multiple American Indian parents) had the lowest levels of symptoms and the highest levels of functioning.
Real-Time Poverty, Material Well-Being, and the Child Tax Credit
Jeehoon Han, Bruce Meyer & James Sullivan
NBER Working Paper, August 2022
Abstract:
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic two new timely poverty measures have been developed to monitor fast-changing economic conditions for the most deprived. The Han et al. near real-time poverty measure uses responses to a global income question on the Monthly Current Population Survey (CPS) that is available for a subsample of those surveyed. The CPSP monthly poverty measure, widely cited in the media, uses data from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the CPS and other sources to impute poverty in the Monthly CPS sample based on demographic and employment variables. This paper evaluates the two measures and their estimates of child poverty around the 2021 temporary changes to the Child Tax Credit (CTC). We argue that conceptually the measure based on responses rather than the one based on imputations is preferable, though both measures suffer from important drawbacks. We also conclude that widely publicized claims that child poverty fell by 25 percent when the Advance CTC payments started and subsequently rose by 41 percent when they ended are based on weak evidence and are overstated. The best evidence, though still imperfect, suggests poverty was relatively stable in 2021 and the first half of 2022. Part of the explanation for the lack of change appears to be a compensating decline in employment among low-skilled workers with children. Other evidence tying changes in well-being to the tax credit is confounded by other policy changes.
Social Spending and Educational Gaps in Infant Health in the United States, 1998-2017
Margot Jackson, Emily Rauscher & Ailish Burns
Demography, October 2022, Pages 1873-1909
Abstract:
Recent expansions of child tax, food assistance, and health insurance programs have made American families' need for a robust social safety net highly evident, while researchers and policymakers continue to debate the best way to support families via the welfare state. How much do children-and which children-benefit from social spending? Using the State-by-State Spending on Kids Dataset, linked to National Vital Statistics System birth data from 1998 to 2017, we examine how state-level child spending affects infant health across maternal education groups. We find that social spending has benefits for both low birth weight and preterm birth rates, especially among babies born to mothers with less than a high school education. The stronger benefits of social spending among lower educated families lead to meaningful declines in educational gaps in infant health as social spending increases. Our findings are consistent with the idea that a strong local welfare state benefits infant health and increases equality of opportunity, and that spending on nonhealth programs is equally beneficial for infant health as investments in health programs.
Buildings and Welfare
Mats Ekman
Rationality and Society, forthcoming
Abstract:
If welfare stigma depends upon social attitudes, only the neediest apply for welfare when they can more easily be seen to do so. Using GoogleMaps' 'StreetView' feature, this article finds that the approval rate of applications for social assistance is higher in welfare offices with building characteristics that enhance the visibility of entry. A fitting explanation for this finding is that persons looking for social assistance dislike being thought of as 'welfare cases', and apply more conservatively when others can see it. The effects decline in the rate of poverty, suggesting that the self-reliance norm weakens as poverty increases.
Social Insurance Programs and Later-Life Mortality: Evidence from New Deal Relief Spending
Hamid Noghanibehambari & Michal Engelman
Journal of Health Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
A growing body of research explores the long-run effects of social programs and welfare spending. However, evidence linking welfare support in early life with longevity is limited. We add to this literature by evaluating the effect of in-utero and early-life exposure to the largest increases in welfare spending in the US history under the New Deal programs. Using Social Security Administration death records linked with the 1940-census and spending data for 115 major cities, we show that the spending is correlated with improvements in old-age longevity. A treatment-on-treated calculation focused on a period when spending rose by approximately 1900 percent finds that a 100 percent rise in municipal spending in the year of birth is associated with roughly 3.5 months higher longevity. We show that these effects are not driven by endogenous selection of births, selective fertility, endogenous migration, and sample selection caused by endogenous data linking. Additional analysis suggests that rises in education and socioeconomic status are likely channels of impact.
Communicating amounts in terms of commonly used budgeting periods increases intentions to claim government benefits
Wendy De La Rosa et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 13 September 2022
Abstract:
Millions of eligible families did not claim their 2021 expanded child tax credit (CTC), collectively forgoing billions of dollars. To address this problem, many policymakers focused on increasing awareness of the CTC by highlighting that families could receive up to $3,600 a year per child. However, people rarely budget on a yearly basis. We propose that communicating the CTC benefit amount in terms of commonly used budgeting periods (e.g., $300 a month) instead of uncommonly used budgeting periods (e.g., $3,600 a year) could increase interest in claiming the CTC. Two large-scale field experiments (n=16,696) among low-income individuals support this account. Using common (vs. uncommon) budgeting periods to describe CTC benefit amounts increased CTC claiming intentions by 16 to 26%. A third large-scale field experiment (n=14,178) demonstrated that encouraging people to consider different budgeting periods moderated these effects. These results suggest that communicating amounts in terms of common budgeting periods is a simple, cost-effective way to stimulate interest in claiming government benefits.