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 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.
The Role of Government Transfers in the Black-White Child Poverty Gap
This policy brief examines the role of government transfers and tax credits in closing the Black-White child poverty gap. Government transfers and tax credits are effective in raising incomes for Black children in poverty, yet are entirely ineffective in closing the Black-White child poverty gap.
The Anti-Poverty Impacts of Expanding Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers
This fact sheet presents estimates of the anti-poverty impacts that expanding the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program could have if the program were transformed so that all households eligible for a voucher would receive one. The Section 8 voucher program is the nation’s largest form of rental assistance, but only about a quarter of households that are eligible for the vouchers receive the benefit.
State Fact Sheets: Policy Options to Address Youth and Young Adult Poverty
We explore the anti-poverty effects of federal policy options in the areas of basic needs, family tax, and economic opportunity for youth and young adults. We break out state-level results across three age groups: ages 14 to 17, ages 18 to 24, and the whole youth and young adult population (ages 14 to 24), as well as by racial and ethnic groups.
Housing Vouchers and Tax Credits: Pairing the Proposal to Transform Section 8 with Expansions to the EITC and the Child Tax Credit Could Cut the National Poverty Rate by Half
Vice President Biden’s campaign put forward a plan to address the housing affordability crisis through the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program. Such an expansion could lead to substantial reductions in the national poverty rate, which we quantify for the first time in this brief.
Effectiveness of Antipoverty Policies and State Differences in Cost of Living
In our latest brief, we find that the main reason antipoverty programs seem to make less of a difference in high-cost areas is simply that the costs in those areas are greater. Our analyses show that costs of living are critical to the accurate assessment of state-level poverty rates and the true impact of antipoverty programs.
Raising Rents for HUD Housing Program Recipients Would Throw Over Half a Million Americans into Poverty
The Making Affordable Housing Work Act of 2018, a recent proposal issued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), outlines a plan to raise rental payments for almost all households that participate in HUD’s housing programs. Our analysis finds that this proposal would deplete the cash resources of participant households by over $750 per year, on average, and move over half a million people into poverty.
A Renter’s Tax Credit to Curtail the Affordable Housing Crisis
To address the housing affordability crisis for low-income Americans, we argue for a refundable renter’s tax credit that could reduce the poverty rate by 12.4 percentage points and the deep poverty rate by 8.8 percentage points.
Dimming the Lights: Eliminating Energy Assistance Would Move 200,000 People into Poverty, Hurting the Rural Poor the Most
Estimating the poverty effects of President Trump’s March 2017 proposal to eliminate the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, we find that it would move more than 200,000 people into poverty, hurting the rural poor the most.