{"id":11840,"date":"2023-10-01T13:36:33","date_gmt":"2023-10-01T13:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=11840"},"modified":"2023-10-01T13:36:33","modified_gmt":"2023-10-01T13:36:33","slug":"we-cut-child-poverty-to-historic-lows-then-let-it-rebound-faster-than-ever-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=11840","title":{"rendered":"We cut child poverty to historic lows, then let it rebound faster than ever before"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“In 2021, the child poverty rate \u2014 as measured by the supplemental poverty measure<\/a> that incorporates the value of government benefits \u2014 took a sharp drop to its lowest point on record: 5.2 percent, so that 3.8 million American children were living below the federal poverty line. Then, as a report just released by the Census Bureau<\/a> found, it experienced the steepest rise in its history in 2022: a hike of 139 percent, or more than double, to 12.4 percent. Five million kids<\/a> fell back into poverty, pushing the number of kids whose parents were struggling to meet their basic needs up to 9 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To anyone following the politics of poverty in America, the jagged rebound was entirely unsurprising. The child poverty rate was like a loaded spring being held down by pandemic-era welfare programs<\/a>. Chief among them: the child allowance<\/a>, which expanded on the existing child tax credit (CTC) and sent monthly payments to all parents in poverty<\/a>, helping to cut child poverty by 46 percent<\/a> in 2021. Release the spring \u2014 or let the expanded CTC expire, as Congress<\/a> did \u2014 and of course it will shoot right back up. The child poverty rates settled right back around pre-pandemic 2019 levels.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The concern<\/a> is that giving out money to people in poverty without requiring them to work in exchange will ultimately create communities where dropping out of work is both widespread and accepted. Cash with no strings attached \u201cgives up on work,\u201d as one conservative analyst put it<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While there have always been disagreements about that view, increasingly, the evidence is against it. Unconditional cash transfers in low-income countries have been found to stimulate economic activity<\/a>. In a pilot program for guaranteed income in Stockton, California, recipients of unconditional cash were quicker to find full-time employment<\/a> than control groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking specifically at the impacts of the expanded CTC, there was no evidence<\/a> that receiving the benefit reduced work, and economists at Columbia University estimated<\/a> that making the program permanent would deliver a more than tenfold return on the investment of about $100 billion per year \u2014 a major boost to the economy. That means in addition to solidifying the massive drop in child poverty and giving millions of struggling American families continued support<\/a> to pay for food, school supplies, utilities, and rent, taxpayers would also save money in the long run.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/2023\/9\/21\/23882353\/child-poverty-expanded-child-tax-credit-census-welfare-inflation-economy-data<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“In 2021, the child poverty rate \u2014 as measured by the supplemental poverty measure that incorporates the value of government benefits \u2014 took a sharp drop to its lowest point on record: 5.2 percent, so that 3.8 million American children were living below the federal poverty line. Then, as a report just released by the Census Bureau found, it experienced the steepest rise in its history in 2022: a hike of 139 percent, or more than double, to 12.4 percent. Five million kids fell back into poverty, pushing the number of kids whose parents were struggling to meet their basic needs up to 9 million.
\nTo anyone following the politics of poverty in America, the jagged rebound was entirely unsurprising. The child poverty rate was like a loaded spring being held down by pandemic-era welfare programs. Chief among them: the child allowance, which expanded on the existing child tax credit (CTC) and sent monthly payments to all parents in poverty, helping to cut child poverty by 46 percent in 2021. Release the spring \u2014 or let the expanded CTC expire, as Congress did \u2014 and of course it will shoot right back up. The child poverty rates settled right back around pre-pandemic 2019 levels.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“The concern is that giving out money to people in poverty without requiring them to work in exchange will ultimately create communities where dropping out of work is both widespread and accepted. Cash with no strings attached \u201cgives up on work,\u201d as one conservative analyst put it.<\/p>\n

While there have always been disagreements about that view, increasingly, the evidence is against it. Unconditional cash transfers in low-income countries have been found to stimulate economic activity. In a pilot program for guaranteed income in Stockton, California, recipients of unconditional cash were quicker to find full-time employment than control groups.<\/p>\n

Looking specifically at the impacts of the expanded CTC, there was no evidence that receiving the benefit reduced work, and economists at Columbia University estimated that making the program permanent would deliver a more than tenfold return on the investment of about $100 billion per year \u2014 a major boost to the economy. That means in addition to solidifying the massive drop in child poverty and giving millions of struggling American families continued support to pay for food, school supplies, utilities, and rent, taxpayers would also save money in the long run.” <\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/2023\/9\/21\/23882353\/child-poverty-expanded-child-tax-credit-census-welfare-inflation-economy-data<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[166,1236,169,707,150],"class_list":["post-11840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-child-poverty","tag-child-tax-credit","tag-children","tag-poverty","tag-welfare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11840"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11841,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11840\/revisions\/11841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}