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 Effectiveness of the Food Stamp Program at Reducing Differences in the Intergenerational Persistence of Poverty
This working paper, released by the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, investigates the effects of food assistance on racial disparities in the intergenerational persistence of poverty. Income transfers that reduce poverty during childhood can contribute to reduced poverty in adulthood and also reduce racial gaps.
The Effects of Child Poverty Reductions on Child Protective Services Involvement and Placement into Out-of-Home Care
This article shows the reduction in child protective services involvement resulting from implementation of three of the policy packages from a recent National Academy of Sciences proposal to reduce child poverty: child allowance and expansions to the earned income tax credit; the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; and the federal minimum wage.
The Effects of the New York City Minimum Wage Increases on Earnings, Poverty, and Material Hardship: Evidence from the Poverty Tracker
This report examines the impact that the New York City minimum wage increases in 2017, 2018, and 2019 had on low-wage workers in the Poverty Tracker sample, looking specifically at earnings, poverty, material hardship, employment, and benefit receipt. The increases contributed to a significant increase in annual earnings of minimum wage workers and did benefit workers that were more likely to face poverty and material hardship.
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 Potential Poverty Reduction Effect of the American Families Plan
We find the proposed American Families Plan–which continues a set of pandemic-era supports, with additional anti-poverty policies–could reduce the national poverty rate in 2022 by nearly one-quarter and child poverty by nearly half.
The Potential Poverty Reduction Effect of the American Rescue Plan
We find that an economic relief package with an expanded Child Tax Credit, nutrition assistance, unemployment benefits, stimulus checks, and more could cut child poverty by more than half in 2021.
U.S. Monthly Poverty Rate Declines to 13.2% in January 2021
Using our monthly poverty framework, we find that the December 2020 COVID-19 economic relief package—continuing enhanced unemployment benefits, stimulus checks, and increased SNAP benefits—kept 13 million individuals from poverty in January 2021.
Limiting States’ Ability to Waive Federal SNAP Work Requirements: A Closer Look at the Potential Implications
A proposed rule change to the food stamp (SNAP) program would alter the way in which states can exempt local areas from federal work requirements by restricting waivers to those areas with a local unemployment rate of 7 percent or higher. We find that the labor market conditions faced by those most likely to be subject to work requirements are substantially worse than the 7-percent floor.
Recent Trends in Food Stamp Usage and Implications for Increased Work Requirements
Proponents of the efforts to expand SNAP work requirements argue that “work-capable” adults are increasingly taking up SNAP benefits while working less. We find that “work-capable” adults do not represent a growing segment of the SNAP caseload and a majority of “work-capable” adults who receive SNAP are working during the year that they receive benefits.
Forgoing Food Assistance out of Fear: Changes to “Public Charge” Rule May Put 500,000 More U.S. Citizen Children at Risk of Moving into Poverty
Immigrant parents, many of whom have citizen children who are entitled to SNAP benefits, are increasingly fearful that any interaction with the government will lead to arrest and deportation. We present estimates of the potential impact of this proposal on child poverty.
Taking Food off the Table: Understanding who would be affected by potential SNAP cuts and how
We estimated the potential impacts of the House budget proposal to cut SNAP by 40% and found that such a cut would impact 24 million people and cause the poverty rate among SNAP recipients to increase by up to 10.9%.