Update of the Benefits and Costs of a Child Allowance—April 2024
This update records the refinements we have made to our benefit-cost child allowance model to date.
The Role of Government Transfers in the Child Poverty Gap by Race and Ethnicity: A Focus on Black, Latino, and White Children
This brief provides insights into the impact of government assistance on shaping racial and ethnic inequities in child poverty. It provides an update to a prior analysis of the Black-White child poverty gap and introduces new findings on the Latino-White child poverty gap.
The Child Tax Credit and Family Well-Being: An Overview of Reforms and Impacts
This publication discusses the structure of the Child Tax Credit and its effects on childhood poverty and other indicators of well-being during three distinct phases of the American Rescue Plan.
When money and mental health problems pile up: The reciprocal relationship between income and psychological distress
This academic article shows that earnings and distress have a reciprocal relationship, with strongest evidence for prime working-age adults, those with below bachelor’s education, and Hispanics.
The Promise of Universal Child Benefits: the Foundational Policy for Economic and Social Development
This brief, released by the International Labour Organization (ILO) with UNICEF and the Learning for Well-Being Institute and featuring two CPSP co-authors, provides a resource for countries looking to enhance an existing child benefit policy or establish a universal child benefit.
Transitioning to Adulthood: Are conventional benchmarks as protective today as they were in the past?
This study uses longitudinal data on young adults to assess the relationship between conventional benchmarks of economic success and poverty.
The Benefits and Costs of Expanding Paid Parental Leave in New York State
This brief provides an estimate of the benefits and costs of paid parental leave given a proposed expansion to New York's paid family leave program.
Racial Discrimination Intensified while the Pandemic Subsided: Experiences of Chinese New Yorkers during 2020-2022
Drawing upon data collected through the New York City Longitudinal Survey of Wellbeing from 2020 to 2022, this report shows that Chinese Americans in New York City experienced intensified racial discrimination and racism-related vigilance while the COVID-19 pandemic subsided.
Starting Sooner: Should Cash Payments Begin During Pregnancy?
This policy brief reviews the research on the potential impact of cash payments to families during pregnancy on birth and longer term outcomes.
Counting Children Fully in Economic Impact Payments and Other Cash Assistance Policies Matters for Poverty Reduction
This brief examines the impact of counting children as full recipients of Economic Impact Payments and other direct cash payments. Counting children fully in cash payments has a significant impact on poverty reduction.
State-Level Poverty Impacts of the Child Tax Credit in 2021
This fact sheet provides estimates of the impacts of the 2021 Child Tax Credit on child poverty in each state.
Inequality Below the Poverty Line since 1967: The Role of the U.S. Welfare State
Today in the United States, unlike in the past, the public policies that do the most to reduce U.S. poverty are also those that do the most to increase inequality among low-income households. This article’s findings reveal that recent state-led antipoverty efforts have placed the near poor and the deeply poor on divergent paths.
Children Left Behind by the Child Tax Credit in 2022
The 2021 Child Tax Credit expansion included the one-third of children formerly left out of the full credit and resulted in historic poverty reduction. The expansion’s expiration excluded these children once again and child poverty rates rose sharply in response. This analysis updates the share and profile of children left out of the full Child Tax Credit in 2022, representing 26% of all children.
What Would 2022 Child Poverty Rates Have Looked Like if an Expanded Child Tax Credit Had Still Been in Place?
The sharp spike in child poverty from 2021 to 2022 represents the largest year-over-year increase on record and is largely the result of the expiration of the 2021 temporary Child Tax Credit expansion. This policy brief examines what 2022 child poverty could have been if an expanded Child Tax Credit had been continued.
A Benefit-Cost Analysis of Child Care Subsidy Expansions: The New York State Case
This paper estimates the benefits and costs of a proposed New York State policy reform to provide child care subsidies to families up to three times the federal poverty line while supplementing child care worker compensation, alongside alternative program design options. It estimates a net present value of $12.4 billion in yearly social benefits relative to a yearly cost of $1.6 billion.
Impact of the Expanded Child Tax Credit and its Expiration on Adult Psychological Well-being
This article investigates the effects of the expanded Child Tax Credit and its expiration on psychological distress of adults in households with children and its differential effects by gender, education, marital status, and race and ethnicity. The expanded Child Tax Credit led to a significant reduction in mild - but not moderate or severe - symptoms of psychological distress, especially among female, single, married, and Hispanic adults.
Effects of the Expanded Child Tax Credit on Household Spending: Estimates Based on U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey Data
In partnership with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this NBER working paper is the first to use nationally-representative expenditure data to examine the impact of the expanded Child Tax Credit on household spending. Families used the monthly payments to enhance child and household well-being, mainly on food, housing, and child-related goods and services.
Too Little, Too Late: An Assessment of Public Spending on Children by Age in 84 Countries
This joint report by researchers at UNICEF Innocenti, the Center on Poverty and Social Policy and the University of York Policy Engine, is a global analysis on how public money is spent on children with the aim to inform the development of child policy portfolios globally.
Experiences of Poverty Around the Time of a Birth: A Research Note
This research note examines the poverty rate of mothers overall and by birth parity and racial and ethnic group in the six months before and after childbirth. Poverty rates increase after child birth, particularly for first-time mothers, and Black and Hispanic mothers.
The Differential Effects of Monthly & Lump-Sum Child Tax Credit Payments on Food & Housing Hardship
This study investigates the effects of the monthly and the lump-sum expanded Child Tax Credit payments on food and housing hardship in the United States. Families were more likely to use the monthly benefits to purchase food, but the lump-sum benefits to catch up on rent payments.