Teenage and Young Adult Dependents Left Out of Cash Payments in Covid-19 Crisis
We identify the 10 million teenagers and young adults left out of CARES Act emergency cash payments and the states most impacted by their exclusion.
Income Guarantee Benefits and Financing: Poverty and Distributional Impacts
In this brief, we explore the feasibility of financing a guaranteed income and the potential poverty impacts. In general we find that income guarantee plans can work to reduce poverty at reasonable costs, such as through a fundamental federal income tax reform and carbon tax-and-dividend plan. However, poverty impacts depend on who is eligible and how the benefit is financed.
The Case for Counting Children in a Carbon Tax Dividend Plan: Net Benefits and Poverty Implications for a Per Capita Dividend
Carbon dividend design can have an impact on the child poverty rate. We find that providing carbon dividends to all adults and children would reduce adult poverty and child poverty. However, limiting carbon dividends to adults only would increase child poverty. If children are not counted, many working class families could be taxed into poverty.
Left Behind: The One-Third of Children in Families Who Earn Too Little to Get the Full Child Tax Credit
The current federal Child Tax Credit provides up to $2,000 per child per year to qualifying children, but low-income families lose out because they do not have enough earnings to qualify for the full benefit. This brief documents who is currently “left behind” in terms of realizing the full benefits of the federal Child Tax Credit because of the CTC’s earnings requirement, finding that those left out are disproportionately children of color, those in families with young children, those with single parents, and those who reside in rural areas.
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.
Medicaid Work Requirements and Poverty: Losing Coverage Could Cost Families over $1,000 per Year, Throwing Many into Poverty
We analyze poverty impacts of the Trump administration's proposal to allow states to impose Medicaid work requirements and find that close to 3 million individuals would lose coverage, annual medical expenses could rise by over $1,000 per family losing coverage, and over 130,000 Americans would enter poverty if work requirements were imposed on Medicaid recipients.
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.
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.
A Child Tax Credit in California: Correcting Inequities Created by the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act Would Cut Deep Child Poverty by Nearly One-Third
Correcting inequalities in the Child Tax Credit created by the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act would cut deep poverty among children in California by nearly a third
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.
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%.
Expanding the Child Tax Credit would Cut Child Poverty Nearly in Half
We find that in a simulation of the Bennet-Brown proposal to expand access to the Child Tax Credit to those at the bottom of the income distribution and boost the value of the credit for all eligible families would cut child poverty nearly in half.
Using the EITC and CTC to Smooth Income Instability: Potential Effects of a “Lookback” on Poverty
We examine the potential effects of a “lookback” provision on poverty which would allow EITC and CTC claimants to look back one year when filing taxes to maximize their credit and smooth earnings instability.
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.