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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Antipoverty Effects of the Expanded Child Tax Credit Across States: Where Were the Historic Reductions Felt?
In this report published by The Hamilton Project at The Brookings Institution, CPSP affiliate Bradley Hardy and CPSP researchers examine the state variation in poverty reduction effects of the 2021 expanded Child Tax Credit. The greatest level of poverty reduction was seen in states with relatively lower costs of living and higher pre-expansion poverty rates.
The Case for a Federal Birth Grant: A Plan to Reduce Poverty for Newborns and their Families
This research brief examines the potential anti-poverty impact of a federal birth grant, including in combination with a child allowance. It shows that a birth grant can significantly reduce poverty rates among infants and their families during the first year post birth.
The Effects of the 2021 Monthly Child Tax Credit on Child and Family Well-Being: Evidence from New York City
This article uses data from two longitudinal studies of well-being in New York City to show that the 2021's expanded monthly Child Tax Credit led to significant declines in experiences of material hardship and multiple hardships, running out of money, and use of food pantries. It did not show evidence of the monthly payments reducing parents’ employment or affecting their mental health.
State Child Tax Credits and Child Poverty: A 50-State Analysis
This report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University on behalf of Share Our Strength details state options on how to use state Child Tax Credits to dramatically reduce child poverty.
Research Roundup of the Expanded Child Tax Credit: One Year On
Since the introduction of the monthly Child Tax Credit in July 2021, a continuous stream of research has tracked its impact on children and their families. More than one year on, this updated research roundup reviews evidence through early November 2022, providing a richer understanding of the effects of the expanded Child Tax Credit while in place and the effects of its expiration.
No Evidence the Child Tax Credit Expansion Had an Effect on the Well-Being and Mental Health of Parents
Moderate-to-large cash transfers have been found to improve subjective well-being and mental health. In the case of the recent Child Tax Credit expansion, there was no evidence that it had a significant short-term impact on measures of life satisfaction, anxiety, and depression symptomology among adult recipients and the authors speculate that this may be due to the expansion’s temporary nature.
The 2021 Child Tax Credit Expansion: Child Poverty Reduction and the Children Formerly Left Behind
This policy brief shows how well the expanded Child Tax Credit did in reducing child poverty relative to prior law. It simulates the pre-ARP version of the Child Tax Credit in 2021 data and compares the actual child poverty reduction in 2021 to what it would have been absent the expansion.
A Step in the Right Direction: The Expanded Child Tax Credit Would Move the United States’ High Child Poverty Rate Closer to Peer Nations
The United States has one of the highest rates of child poverty among wealthy democracies. The expanded Child Tax Credit would move the U.S. child poverty rate closer to the mainstream: from 31st to 24th among the 34 advanced democracies with comparable data.
The Benefits and Costs of a U.S. Child Allowance
This benefit-cost analysis of a U.S. child allowance indicates that making the $2000 Child Tax Credit fully refundable and increasing benefits to $3000/$3600 would cost $97 billion per year and generate social benefits of $929 billion per year, a very strong return for the U.S. population.
Keeping Up with Inflation: How policy indexation can enhance poverty reduction
As families across the United States contend with record-high inflation, the values of several government benefits and tax credits are not keeping up. This paper, published by the Century Foundation, examines the antipoverty potential of one policy, the expanded Child Tax Credit, under different scenarios to shine a spotlight on the importance of inflation indexation for optimizing the antipoverty effects of government policies.
The EITC and the CTC Give Temporary Income Boost to Low-Income Families
Due to refundable tax credits, monthly poverty fell from 14.4% in February 2022 to 10.8% in March 2022, and for children from 16.7% to 9.9%.