Skip to main content

Currently Skimming:

7 Other Policy and Program Approaches to Child Poverty Reduction
Pages 195-226

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 195...
... For other reforms, such as block grants, mandatory employment programs, and expansion of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, the evidence on poverty-­ reducing impacts is ambiguous or incomplete.
From page 196...
... FAMILY PLANNING Background As we will note below, research has shown that unintended births are very common and that they have a high probability of leading to family incomes below the poverty line. Reducing unintended births is therefore an option often raised in discussions of how to reduce poverty.
From page 197...
... . Implications for Policy The research literature on unintended births has established three facts relevant to national policy on birth control methods that would reduce child poverty by allowing women who want to delay births to do so effectively.
From page 198...
... In addition, the Colorado Family Planning Initiative saved a total of around $68 million in entitlement program costs (combining federal and state costs) for women ages 15 to 24 and their infants (Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, 2017)
From page 199...
... An evaluation of its efforts showed that among women ages 20 to 39 who were Delaware Title X family planning clients, use of LARC roughly doubled, from 14 to 27 percent, while use of less effective birth control measures, including the pill, the patch, and the ring, decreased substantially. These changes were projected to decrease the rate of unintended pregnancy among this population by 15 percentage points between 2014 and 2016 (Welti and Manlove, 2018)
From page 200...
... Thus, policies that increase the share of children living in married-couple or other two-parent family structures are likely to reduce child poverty rates (Gibson-Davis, 2016)
From page 201...
... . Most studies of the effect of the TANF program on marriage compare it with its predecessor, the AFDC program, which it replaced as part of the welfare reforms of the 1990s.
From page 202...
... Over the course of 3 years, more than 5,000 couples living in eight states participated in the evaluation of the Building Strong Families program, at an average program cost of about $11,000 per couple. A r ­ andom-assignment evaluation found that the project had no overall effects on the quality of couples' relationships, the chances that they would stay together or get married, their coparenting relationships, or their family incomes.
From page 203...
... One is that all participating couples were already in long-term (5 years or longer) marital or co-habitation relationships at the beginning of the study, so the marriage impact in the PACT study was one of reducing breakups rather than increasing marriage rates.
From page 204...
... family and medical leave policy comprises a variety of laws enacted at the federal, state, and local levels to provide for unpaid or paid leave; additionally, in some cases employers have adopted their own policies. The national policy governing family or medical leave is embodied in the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
From page 205...
... . Implications for Policy Access to paid family and medical leave has the potential to reduce child poverty by increasing employment and improving maternal and child health, although the potential effects of paid family and medical leave on employment and wages are ambiguous (Klerman and Leibowitz, 1994; Olivetti and Petrongolo, 2017)
From page 206...
... who found that federal mandates that maternity benefits be included in health insurance plans reduced female employment. Turning to employers, one study of the California Paid Family Leave policy suggests that it had no burdensome effects on employers' wage costs.
From page 207...
... , work-related assistance such as child care subsidies, and purely financial incentives designed to work through the tax system, especially tax credits like the EITC. All of these have the potential to make a difference, and a large body of research evidence shows that many of them generate modest to substantial increases in employment and subsequent reductions in family poverty.5 This section focuses on another employment policy approach: mandatory employment programs for recipients of government transfers.
From page 208...
... Some of the strongest evidence in support of these programs comes from randomized controlled trials that were published in the 1990s, when a large number of experiments were conducted on a diverse set of mandatory employment programs in several states and localities.6 Most of these employment-related programs were directed at recipients of benefits from the former AFDC program, most of whom were single mothers, so the bulk of the available evidence relates to that demographic group. A particularly useful and comprehensive summary of the many randomized clinical trials conducted over that period is provided in Greenberg, Deitch, and Hamilton (2009)
From page 209...
... While programs implemented at some of the sites did produce substantial gains in household income, the evaluations were unable to identify the program features that made this difference. Evidence on the impacts of mandatory work programs also comes from the implementation of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, which required that all states mandate work for most recipients of benefits under the new TANF program.
From page 210...
... BLOCK GRANTS Background Block grants provide federal assistance, typically to state governments, for broadly defined functions such as social services. Unlike categorical grants, federal block grants give states considerable flexibility in allocating and spending the allotted funds.
From page 211...
... Accordingly, there is no simple answer to the question of whether block grants are likely to increase or reduce poverty. Implications for Policy Key features of block grants can be gleaned from states' experience with several existing block grants -- in particular, the TANF block grant, the Title XX Social Services block grant, and the Child Care and Development block grant.8 A fundamental feature is the block grant's initial funding level.
From page 212...
... The TANF block grant is a prime example worth examining, since it allows states considerable flexibility in spending block-grant funding. States vary widely in the amount of money they spend from this grant on cash assistance or a variety of other programs, and they also vary widely in the amounts they allocate per family at different income levels.10 Unfortunately, we know very little about how states' choices relate to changes in state child-poverty rates.11 States' reporting requirements under TANF are quite minimal, so federal policy makers and researchers are unable to determine whether the funds are being spent in keeping with the letter or spirit of the block grant.12 All of these issues illustrate the challenges that are inherent in the design and operation of block grants, which will in turn affect the degree to which these grants are able to reduce the poverty rate.
From page 213...
... THE TANF PROGRAM Background On a bipartisan basis, Congress created the TANF program, which was signed into law by President Clinton in 1996. The legislation converted what was previously known as AFDC from a matching grant to a block grant program, introduced work requirements and time limits, and imposed a large number of conditions on the states.
From page 214...
... Poverty reduction in the next generation falls outside of the committee's 10-year window. However, we considered how providing health insurance and taking other steps to improve children's health might reduce child poverty in the short run through such mechanisms as reducing families'
From page 215...
... . Yet despite their proven benefits, health insurance programs such as Medicaid and CHIP are not directly reflected in official poverty measures.
From page 216...
... expenses -- for health insurance premiums, copayments, deductibles, and uncovered care -- from family resources. When these expenses are deducted, some families that are above the poverty line defined by the Official Poverty Measure (OPM)
From page 217...
... Thus, by definition, health spending can have little direct short-run impact on child poverty measures. Nevertheless, the signif icant child-poverty-reducing effects of Medicaid are illustrated by the 2014 results of a Health-Inclusive Poverty Measure, which augments the Supplemental Poverty Measure by considering health insurance needs when setting the thresholds and appropriately treating net med ical expenses in measuring family resources.  POLICIES TOWARD AMERICAN INDIAN AND ALASKA NATIVE CHILDREN Background AIAN are eligible for the standard programs and services available to all U.S.
From page 218...
... In addition to providing direct services and programs to support residents, they are a significant source of employment. Thriving and successful tribal governments are therefore a key component in reducing child poverty among the AIAN population (Jorgensen, 2007)
From page 219...
... Limited evaluation of these programs suggests that tribes that operate their own TANF programs experienced a drop of about 5 percentage points in poverty rates between 1990 and 2010 (Mather, 2017)
From page 220...
... . The effects of paid family leave in California on labor market outcomes.
From page 221...
... . Unanticipated effects of California's paid family leave program.
From page 222...
... . Block grants: Historical overview and les sons learned.
From page 223...
... . Child health in elementary school following Cali fornia's paid family leave program.
From page 224...
... . State Paid Family Leave Insurance Laws.
From page 225...
... . Women's experiences after Planned Par enthood's exclusion from a family planning program in Texas.


This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More information on Chapter Skim is available.