A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty (2019) / Chapter Skim
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3 Consequences of Child Poverty
3 Consequences of Child Poverty
Pages 67-96
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From page 67... ...
We find overwhelming evidence from this literature that, on average, a child growing up in a family whose income is below the poverty line experiences worse outcomes than a child from a wealthier family in virtually every dimension, from physical and mental health, to educational attainment and labor market success, to risky behaviors and delinquency. This finding needs to be qualified in two important ways.
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From page 68... ...
We begin with a brief summary of the mechanisms by which childhood poverty may cause worse childhood outcomes, along with lessons from the vast correlational literature, which is reviewed in depth in this chapter's appendix. We then turn to a review of the causal impacts of policies -- income policies as well as anti-poverty policies -- on child well-being, derived from both experimental and quasi-experimental (natural experiment)
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From page 69... ...
. The alternative, "stress" perspective on poverty reduction focuses on the fact that economic hardship can increase psychological distress in
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From page 70... ...
In addition, a major portion of existing research has focused on this pathway. We recognize that child stress is an important factor leading to negative child outcomes, including effects on early brain development (Blair and Raver, 2016, Shonkoff et al., 2012)
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From page 71... ...
children who were followed from birth into their 30s and examines how poverty in the first 6 years of life is related to adult outcomes. What they find is that compared with children whose families had incomes above twice the poverty line during their early childhood, children with family incomes below the poverty line during this period completed 2 fewer years of schooling and, as adults, worked 451 fewer hours per year, earned less than one-half as much, received more in food stamps, and were more than twice as likely to report poor overall health or high levels of psychological distress (some of FIGURE 3 -2: these differences are shown in Figure 3-2)
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From page 72... ...
(2013) , Figure 3-3 illustrates differences in the total volume of gray matter between three groups of children: those whose family incomes were no more than twice the poverty line (labeled "Low SES" in the figure)
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From page 73... ...
CONCLUSION 3-2: Some children are resilient to a number of the adverse impacts of poverty, but many studies show significant asso ciations between poverty and child maltreatment, adverse childhood experiences, increased material hardship, worse physical health, low birth weight, structural changes in brain development, mental health problems, decreased educational attainment, and increased risky behav iors, delinquency, and criminal behavior in adolescence and adulthood. As for the timing and severity of poverty, the literature documents that poverty in early childhood, prolonged poverty, and deep poverty are all associated with worse child and adult outcomes.
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From page 74... ...
A negative income tax is based on a minimum income, or floor, under the tax system; people with incomes above the floor pay taxes, while those with incomes below the floor receive a transfer payment -- a kind of negative tax that brings their family incomes up to the floor. The negative tax payment is largest for families with the least income, becoming smaller and smaller as other sources of family income increase.
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From page 75... ...
That these experiments were conducted decades ago limits the value of the lessons they might provide for today's policy discussions. That said, the large negative income tax payments reduced poverty and improved children's birth outcomes and nutrition, but had mixed effects on child outcomes such as school performance (Kehrer and Wolin, 1979; Salkind and Haskins, 1982)
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From page 76... ...
link EITC changes to national data tracking children's achievement test scores over time and find that a $1,000 increase in family income raised math and reading achievement test scores by 6 percent of a standard deviation. Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff (2011)
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From page 77... ...
All of the new programs had the effect of increasing parent employment, relative to the old AFDC programs, but only some of the programs increased family income as well. Because a number of evaluations included measures of child outcomes, these diverse state experiments provided an opportunity to assess the effects of combinations of increased income and parental employment on child and adolescent well-being.
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From page 78... ...
These findings are consistent with correlational research linking formal child care to better academic skills among low-income children (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network and Duncan, 2003)
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From page 79... ...
Currently, SSI benefits cover almost 2 percent of all children, with benefit amounts that average $650 a month, and they raise about one-half of recipient families above the poverty line (Romig, 2017)
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From page 80... ...
But one SSI program provision provides a natural experiment for estimating the possible benefit of SSI income on child outcomes: babies weighing less than 1,200 grams at birth are eligible for SSI, while babies weighing just over 1,200 grams are not.2 This eligibility cutoff provides researchers with opportunities to compare the developmental trajectories of children on either side of the cutoff. Guldi et al.
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From page 81... ...
In sum, studies of casino payments provide opportunities to estimate causal impacts of income on adolescent and young adult outcomes. They show strong positive impacts on emotional, behavioral, and educational outcomes, and reduced drug and alcohol use and criminal behavior.
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From page 82... ...
"Near-Cash" Benefits: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Housing Subsidies In addition to work on cash transfers of various kinds, there has been a great deal of research into the causal effects of what are sometimes called "near-cash" programs, especially those offering nutrition assistance and housing subsidies.
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From page 83... ...
to investigate the effects on adult health of the availability of food stamps at different points in childhood. The infant health study found that food stamp availability reduced the incidence of low birth weight -- a result similar to one found in a more recent study of birth weight surrounding changes in rules for immigrant eligibility for food stamps beginning in the mid-1990s (East, 2016)
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From page 84... ...
Scores on the index of metabolic syndrome Impact of food stamp exposure on metabolic syndrome index at age on Metabolic Syndrome Index at ages 25+ increase steadily until around the age of 5. 25 and above It is impossible to determine the extent to which the adult health bene fits of food stamp availability in very early childhood were generated by the nutritional advantages of the extra spending on food or by the more general 0.50 Food stamp Food stamp program Program not implemented in early available in early (higher scores indicate worse health)
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From page 85... ...
Housing Subsidies By reducing housing costs, housing subsidy programs can provide a substantial transfer of economic resources to recipient households. The main types of assistance available are public housing, voucher-based rental assistance under the Housing Choice Voucher (formerly called Section 8)
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From page 86... ...
In the case of public housing demolitions, children whose families were displaced from soon-to-be demolished public housing and given housing vouchers may be compared with children living in the same housing projects whose units were not demolished. Since both groups received housing subsidies, the contrast does not involve large differences in economic resources provided by housing subsidies.
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From page 87... ...
Children who were young when their families received housing benefits enabling them to move to low-poverty neighborhoods had improved educational attainment and better adult outcomes. Medicaid Controversy over the Medicaid expansions included in the Affordable Care Act has obscured public understanding of the sheer scale of the earlier expansions of public health insurance for pregnant women, infants, and children.
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From page 88... ...
Collectively, these results suggest that as many as 6 million children gained access to basic preventive care as a result of the Medicaid expansions. (See Howell and Kenney, 2012, for a review of research studies.)
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From page 89... ...
children. CONCLUSION 3-7: Expansions of public health insurance for preg nant women, infants, and children have generated large improvements in child and adult health and in educational attainment, employment, and earnings.
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From page 90... ...
Their procedures lead to a very broad interpretation of the causal effects of childhood poverty -- the impacts not only of low parental incomes but also of the entire range of environmental factors associated with poverty in the United States and all of the personal characteristics imparted by parents, schools, and neighborhoods to children affected by them. At the same time, Holzer and colleagues (2008)
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From page 91... ...
. Do Cash Transfer Programs Improve Infant Health: Evidence from the 1993 Expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit.
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From page 92... ...
. The effect of child health insurance access on schooling: Evidence from public insurance expansions.
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From page 93... ...
. The impact of family income on child achievement: Evidence from the Earned Income Tax Credit.
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From page 94... ...
. Income, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and infant health.
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From page 95... ...
. The Effects of the Earned Income Tax Credit on Child Achievement and Long-Term Educational Attainment.
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From page 96... ...
. Effects of prenatal poverty on infant health: State Earned Income Tax Credits and birth weight.
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