Tag Archives: poverty

Children’s Neighborhoods, Homes, and Health

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One of my favorite things to do is explore cities on foot. Of course, I like some cities more than others—New York City being among my favorites. Until recently, I hadn’t quite articulated what makes a city attractive and appealing to me. Then I came across a video by the School of Life, an organization based out of London. According to the video, some of the things people tend to enjoy about cities include order and variety in physical structures, visible life such as street-level businesses with large windows, and a sense of mystery about places to discover.

These are things that adults might think about when exploring or moving to a new neighborhood, but what about children? What do they need and how does their housing and neighborhood affect their health and wellbeing? In the Future of Children, Ingrid Gould Ellen and Sherry Glied summarize what we know from research. One thing is clear—poor children tend to live in more disadvantaged environments.

For instance, poor children are more likely to live in inadequate housing. The U.S. Census Bureau considers a unit inadequate for reasons such as not having hot and cold running water, no bathtub or shower, no flushing toilet, and having exposed wiring. Recent estimates indicate that 11% of poor households with children and 5.9% of all households with children were physically inadequate, respectively. Thankfully, these figures have been cut in half since the 1970s. Nevertheless, children living in these circumstances probably experience greater emotional and behavioral problems and may perform worse in school.

The physical condition of children’s neighborhoods and what happens in them is also important. For example, when violent crime occurs close to where a child lives, that child is likely to perform poorer on cognitive tests within the next week. Car pollution is associated with asthma and even premature birth. As for the physical condition of things, poorly maintained playgrounds, crumbling sidewalks, and littered glass may result in physical injury or less outdoor activity. We should keep in mind that injuries and homicide are among the leading causes of death among children.

What can we do to make children’s homes and neighborhoods healthier and safer?

Speed bumps and safe walking/biking paths can reduce rates of child pedestrian injuries.

Installing window bars on apartment buildings can reduce fall-related deaths among children.

Introducing the E-ZPass at toll booths can reduce pollution in nearby residential areas. This strategy has been shown to reduce the incidence of preterm births in these neighborhoods.

There are many things we can do to make the homes and neighborhoods of children safe and healthy. However, Ellen and Glied caution that improvements to housing and neighborhoods can increase costs, thereby driving out low-income families. While subsidies can offset these costs for some families, the authors suggest that policymakers experiment with offering subsides to more families while reducing the size of the subsidy available per family. To learn more, see the Future of Children issue, “Policies to Promote Child Health.”

Childhood Food Insecurity in America

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This past year, lighthearted quizzes have been popular to share and discuss on social media. They’ve allowed to me to find out everything from what U.S. state I actually belong in to which Disney princess I would be if I existed in the cartoon realm, simply by answering odd and seemingly unrelated questions about my personality and preferences. The researcher in me feels a little annoyed at how unscientific these assessments are, but at the same time they are sometimes too fun to pass up–and somehow the results can feel so valid. I’m definitely not opposed to the idea of living in New York as Mulan.

As fun as it can be to spend free time taking and sharing these quizzes, one quiz that ought to go viral is the Hunger Quiz from the Feeding America charity. While it won’t tell you which vegetable you are, it will inform you of some of the surprising facts about hunger in America, and possibly some of your misconceptions about food insecurity. A take-home message is that hunger is a significant problem in America that can alleviated. But what can we do about it?

In a new Future of Children research report, professors Craig Gunderson of the University of Illinois and James Ziliak of the University of Kentucky use the latest research to describe childhood food insecurity in the U.S. They write that the government defines food insecurity as “a household-level economic and social condition of limited access to food” and surprisingly, in 2012, over 1 in 5 children met this criterion. This is disheartening, especially since the government spent over $100 billion in fiscal year 2012 on federal food-assistance programs.

The authors argue that one reason food insecurity rates remain stubbornly high is that we don’t fully understand what causes food insecurity or how programs help alleviate it. The research in the report helps fill this gap and can contribute to policy initiatives that could result in powerful improvements in the health and wellbeing of children.

In upcoming blog posts, we’ll be exploring factors that contribute to food insecurity and what policies are worth consideration in light of these factors. To learn more about food insecurity in America, see the Fall 2014 research report in the Future of Children.

The Promise of Two-Generation Programs

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This week, the Future of Children released a new issue titled Helping Parents, Helping Children: Two-Generation Mechanisms. As the executive summary says, “because the home environment is so important for children’s development, many people think that ‘two-generation’ programs, which serve parents and children simultaneously with high-quality interventions, can be more effective (and perhaps more efficient) than programs that serve them individually.” These programs generally entail parents enrolling in education or job training at the same time they enroll their children in high-quality child care. The issue explores six mechanisms, or pathways, through which parents and the home environment may influence children’s development–stress, education, health, income, employment, and assets–to discover how we might best use these mechanisms to bolster two-generation programs.

A recent story in the Washington Post, which highlights findings from our issue, describes the two-generation approach, especially as it relates to alleviating poverty. It features Future of Children Senior Editor Ron Haskins, who remarks that although it is too early to tell whether the two-generation approach is effective in alleviating poverty, it certainly shows promise. P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, co-author of one paper in the issue, describes in the story how it is unreasonable for the child to be the only point of intervention when a family is going through difficult times: “Those gains [from childhood intervention alone] may not be enough if a child is coming home to a family with great hopes, but is stressed by making ends meet, working multiple jobs, looking for work or facing food insecurity.” To lift a child out of poverty, the family likely needs help as well.

The quality of the home environment and parent-child relationships are crucial for children’s development because they have lasting effects into adulthood and carry intergenerational implications. We invite you to explore the two-generation mechanisms and programs found in this issue of the Future of Children.

A Counterintuitive Approach to Reducing Poverty

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Can government successfully intervene to raise incomes and reduce poverty? It’s a heated but critical question. While social welfare programs, such as SNAP (food stamps) and Medicaid, help lift low-income families out of poverty, in some cases they can produce a disincentive to make more money–known as the “cliff effect“–in which a modest increase in income could mean an equal or greater decrease in welfare benefit. In other words, some families could be worse off financially if they accept a small raise at work.

This is obviously problematic, but what is the solution?

Future of Children author Gordon L. Berlin suggests expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which was created to increase work incentives among the poor by reducing the federal taxes they owe and refunding any leftover tax credit through yearly tax returns. For those filing taxes this year, the maximum EITC for a family with three children is approximately $6,000, while those without children can receive a maximum of approximately $500. As President Obama acknowledged in his 2014 State of the Union Address, “few [policies] are more effective at reducing inequality and helping families pull themselves up through hard work … but it doesn’t do enough for single workers who don’t have kids.”

Berlin’s policy recommendation addresses this concern. He argues for increasing the credit for all low-wage workers aged 21 to 54 who work full time–regardless of whether they have children or whether they are married, though the largest benefits would accrue to two-parent households in which both adults can work full-time. This policy would reduce poverty without distorting work incentives, as the earning supplement would progressively decrease with higher income. In effect, it could help transform a “cliff” into a steady slope of opportunity.

To learn more about this proposed policy, including how it could be paid for, see the Future of Children issue on The Next Generation of Anti-Poverty Strategies. We will return the topic of EITC expansion and how it can help children in our Spring 2014 Future of Children issue, “Helping Parents, Helping Children: Two-Generation Mechanisms.”

New Census Data Good for Researchers

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In September, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 15.2 percent of all U.S. people or 46,602,000 were living below the poverty line. This number was reached using the standard measure, the same method the Census Bureau has used for the last half century, and “a method that no longer corresponds to reality,” as Jane Waldfogel, Future of Children Issue Editor/ Author and Professor of Social Work at Columbia University told the New York Times. “It doesn’t get either side of the equation right–how much the poor have or how much they need. No one really trusts the data.” (New York Times, November 3, 2011)

This week, the Census Bureau released new poverty data based on using new methods that take into account federal programs, including tax breaks and food stamps, the cost of medical care, transportation costs to get to and from work, and the changing make-up of families. The latest figures raise the poverty line to an annual income of $24,343 for a family of 2 adults and 2 children compared to $22,113 under the official standard. When taking these factors into consideration, the percentage of people living below the poverty line in the U.S. rose to 16 percent or 49,094,000.

On the PBS News Hour, in a segment with Ray Suarez, Future of Children Senior Editor Ron Haskins points out that this is not the first time the Census Bureau has looked at poverty in the United States in a more comprehensive way. The Census Bureau has been publishing similar numbers, although not as complete as the New Supplemental Poverty Measure, since roughly 1995. One of the reasons the poverty measure is important is that it can indicate whether or not government programs are helping those living in poverty. Haskins states in this interview that these programs provide a substantial amount of help, particularly to low-income working families.

The Census Bureau admits that the new measure will not replace the official poverty measure, and it will not be used for resource allocation or for program eligibility. But this crucial data could begin to tell us something about the way millions of Americans are forced to live. (The Guardian Datablog, November 11, 2011)

As Haskins says, “I think it’s helpful for [Americans] to learn that government programs make a big difference, and it’s helpful for the poor to know that, if they try to work, even if they make low income, they can do much better because of government programs… To me, that’s the main message of this report, that government programs are effective in helping poor people, especially if they’re helping themselves.”

A table comparing the data from the Standard Poverty Measure with the New Supplemental Poverty Measure can be found on the Guardian Datablog.

For more information on programs that support poor families, see the Future of Children’s volume on Antipoverty Policies.

New Census Measure Provides More Detailed View of Poverty

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The U.S. Census Bureau recently announced plans to publish a new poverty measure in conjunction with the traditional measure, a move that can shed additional light on vulnerable populations and how current policies are serving them. While the new measure will not replace the current one in policies and determining program eligibility and funding, it will reveal a more nuanced view of the experience of lower-income Americans.
The standard measure, first published in 1964 as part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty, calculates a federal poverty threshold based on food expenditures as determined by the “thrifty food plan” developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The measure is quite simple; it presumes that food expenditures should make up a third a household’s budget, so it simply multiplies the amount allowed under the thrifty food plan by three. Families are considered poor if their household income falls below this level. While the threshold has been continually adjusted to account for inflation, it does not account for regional differences. Even more problematic is that over the past half-century food prices have dropped relative to expenses such as housing; given that housing costs have soared since the 1960’s, the current measure does not accurately capture the financial strain of some families.
The new measure is based on different calculations of necessary spending and family resources. Household spending includes the costs of food, housing, utilities, and clothing, as well as a little bit extra. Family resources include not only income, but also in-kind benefits such as food stamps. The resource measure also subtracts taxes and tax credits, work expenses such as commuting costs and childcare, and out-of-pocket medical expenses to represent the family’s actual ability to cover the expenses listed above. This more accurate and thorough measure acknowledges the complexity of resources and spending, and it allows for geographic adjustment such as greater costs in places with more expensive housing.
Scheduled to be released annually starting in fall 2011, this new measure will help policy evaluation in three major ways. First, it will help determine if all vulnerable populations are being reached. Second, by including additional measures of needs and resources, researchers and policy makers can better analyze whether assistance programs are mitigating families’ experiences of poverty, such as the difference food stamps make to a family. Third, the measure will show how much necessary expenses add to a family’s burden. By extending beyond food costs to include housing, out-of-pocket medical expenses, and utilities, policy makers can identify areas where the poor need the most help to fulfill their families’ needs.
As explored in an issue of The Future of Children that focuses on antipoverty policies, these types of governmental assistance for child care, health care, and education are critical for needy families. The Census’s new poverty measure allows a new insight into these issues and interventions and can provide a powerful new tool for analysis in the coming years.

For more details, see the federal government’s working group report from March 2010: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/povmeas/SPM_TWGObservations.pdf

New California Law Undermines Critical Employment Supports

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In the thirteen years since welfare reform was enacted, many people have moved off welfare and into jobs. Some have exited poverty altogether. Many remain on welfare, however, or have used up their time on welfare but continue to face significant challenges to steady employment. This population is disproportionally made up of single mothers, often dealing with obstacles to work such as low levels of education, substance abuse, mental illness, and poor health. States offer, to varying degrees, supports such as child care, transportation, and job training — assistance that is critical to these women’s employment prospects.
The current recession has forced states to reduce expenditures, so work support programs are vulnerable to being cut. For example, cash-strapped California has offered women on welfare with young children the option of foregoing work requirements in return for giving up child care and other work supports. Interestingly, few women have accepted this offer thus far, so California may even require some mothers to take the welfare check without work requirements or supplemental programs. While economically beneficial for California in the short term, this policy could counteract anti-poverty measures in the long run. California’s action also could influence other states, furthering a policy that works against providing single mothers critical support as they make their way off cash assistance and into work.
As an article in The Future of Children’s Anti-Poverty issue explains, child care assistance helps families stay in jobs and have more disposable income. Although low-income families purchase less expensive care than higher-income families, child care comprises a larger portion of their expenditures. Since child care is necessary for working parents, so also are the subsidies to low-income working mothers, who would otherwise not be able to afford to have someone watch their children. In addition, employment assistance is necessary for mothers facing barriers to work such as mental and physical health problems or substance abuse.
One benefit of welfare-to-work programs has been an increase in mothers’ take-home earnings, which can improve family circumstances in many ways. Work coupled with child care subsidies, transportation assistance, Medicaid, and other such programs offers low-income mothers an opportunity to meet their families’ basic needs.

For mothers encountering multiple barriers to work, leaving them able to work only in a limited capacity if at all, cash assistance and work supports are critical. Unfortunately, California’s short term need to cut support programs could hurt vulnerable women just starting to make their way into some level of self-sufficiency.

Teen Birth Rates on the Rise — Policies to Reverse Course

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As recently reported in USA Today, a report issued by the National Center for Health Statistics shows that between 2005 and 2006, the teen birth rate increased in 26 states, reversing a 14-year decline in teen birth rates. While states that historically had the lowest birth rates showed non-significant changes (New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut), states with already high teen birth rates (Arkansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Texas) showed increases, leaving Mississippi with the highest rate of 68.4 births for every 1,000 female teen ages 15-19. Alaska showed the greatest increase in teen birth rates (up 19%), while the District of Columbia reported the most dramatic decline in rates (down 24%).

The numbers do not bode well for child wellbeing. In study after study, research has shown that children born and raised in single mother households are poorer than other children, and that other negative child outcomes follow. Children born to teen unmarried mothers, who often interrupt schooling to have their babies, are most vulnerable. A Hoffman and Foster study cited in a recent volume of the Future of Children volume on Poverty estimated that delaying childbearing among teens would increase median family income by a factor of 1.5 to 2.2, and reduce poverty rates by even more.

The policy goal, therefore, is to reverse course and return to the downward trend in teen pregnancy. But how do we do that? In their Future of Children article on this topic, Greg Duncan and Katherine Magnuson demonstrate that programs to prevent teen childbearing by reducing sexual activity and promoting contraceptive use have NOT been proven to be successful. More often than not, programs designed to postpone sexual behavior fail to delay its onset or reduce its frequency. Some more intensive interventions that provide mentoring and constructive after-school activities have had more positive results, but it is unclear whether these can be replicated on a larger scale.
Two other Future of Children authors, Paul Amato and Rebecca Maynard agree that the evidence on the effectiveness of programs is slim, and what we do know is not encouraging. However, they note that the programs have never truly been tested in an experimental setting. Therefore, they argue that schools should continue to offer health and sex education, starting no later than middle school, and that promising programs should be tested using the “gold standard” of research, where the comparison group is truly “treatment free.” Armed with good social science data, the federal government could provide school districts with tested curriculum models.
Since some teens, particularly low-income youth, still get pregnant despite access to contraception, we need to consider and challenge the social norms that have led to acceptance of teen child bearing. Education programs and public service campaigns (some of which are profiled in “Using the Media to Promote Adolescent Wellbeing") can support the message that nonmarital childbearing, particularly in the teenage years, is NOT an expected stage in life.
The investment in good, research based programs would be worth it. If a universal program initiative succeeded in cutting the teenage birth rate in half, the estimated return on the investment would be approximately 20 percent.
For more information, see

Early Childhood Education — A Promise that Needs to be Fulfilled

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A recent front page New York Times story highlighted President Elect Obama’s campaign commitment to early childhood education and his pledge of $10 billion to this important cause. As the article correctly notes, the push for comprehensive early childhood education has had a tremendous boost from the research of Nobel-Prize winning economist, James J. Heckman, who showed in dollars what educators, psychologists and child advocates have been saying for years — that each dollar spent on quality early education can reduce and even eliminate the need for much higher government spending on remedial education, teenage pregnancy, and prisons. “Obama Pledge Stirs Hope in Early Education.”

Research from The Future of Children volumes on Poverty, Opportunity in America, and School Readiness support President Elect Obama’s plans 100 percent. Articles from various Future of Children publications show that quality early education can be instrumental to increasing social mobility, decreasing poverty, and closing the racial and ethnic achievement gap.
However, quality is the key word. All the research highlighted shows that substantive gains will only be made if preschool teachers are highly educated and well-trained, class sizes are small, and education is the focus of the programs. Such high quality programs are not inexpensive (one estimate is $20 billion a year, net of current spending), but the gains – a savings of $8-$14 for each $1 spent – could be enormous. Generally, current Head Start and average state programs do not quite meet these standards. Family child care does not come close.
Some may say that with the current financial crisis and budget deficit, such funding is unlikely. However, in its policy brief, “Closing Achievement Gaps,” The Future of Children has recommended that the federal government sponsor statewide demonstration programs in several states that agree to enroll all or nearly all low income four-year-olds or three- and four-year olds in high-quality programs.
To participate, states would have to agree to meet a series of conditions, including: 1) involving the parents to the maximum degree possible; 2) coordinating the preschool program with the kindergarten program in the public schools; 3) maintaining standards at least as strong as Head Start standards; 4) providing professional development to all teachers in the program; 5) maintaining at least current state spending on preschool programs; 6) participating in a third-party evaluation of program impacts; and, probably most important, 7) outlining a plan for coordinating all state and federal resources for providing quality preschool programs.
By pooling all child care and early education funds – including Head Start, Title I, the Child Care and Development Block Grant, state programs – a single coordinated program could be created as a first step to building a higher quality program for young children – one that exceeds Head Start and other current state programs in its ability to bring children out of poverty, work towards closing the achievement gap, and create a first step in the ladder of opportunity.
For more information, see:
The Next Generation of Anti-Poverty Policies, eds. Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill
Opportunity in America, eds. Isabel Sawhill and Sara McLanahan
Closing Racial and Ethnic Gaps, eds. Cecilia Rouse, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, and Sara McLanahan,