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Journal Issue: Children and Poverty Volume 7 Number 2 Summer/Fall 1997

Child Poverty Can Be Reduced
Authors: Robert D. Plotnick

Endnotes

  1. Because many poor children live in families on welfare, policies to increase earnings of adult welfare recipients are major components of this approach. For articles on this topic, see Larner, M., ed. Welfare to Work. The Future of Children (Spring 1997) 7,1:4-144.
  2. These approaches take the number of children at risk of poverty as a given and focus on raising family incomes. Another way to lower child poverty—reducing unwanted childbearing among women who face high risks of being poor, such as teenagers—is beyond the scope of this article.
  3. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. Measuring the effect of benefits and taxes on income and poverty: 1979 to 1991. Current Population Reports, P-60, no. 182RD. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992, pp. 98, 109, 111; for 1995, see U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. Poverty in the United States: 1995. Current Population Reports, P-60, no. 194. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1996, pp. 24, 25.
  4. Lack of job availability does not appear to be a major factor in the rise in pretransfer poverty. While for some, such as inner-city minorities or persons in depressed rural areas, it remains an important obstacle, over the long run the U.S. economy has successfully created jobs at all skill levels. Blank, R. Outlook for the U.S. labor market and prospects for low-wage entry jobs. In The work alternative: Welfare reform and the realities of the job market. D. Nightingale and R. Haveman, eds. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press, 1995, pp. 33-69; Danziger, S., and Gottschalk, P. America unequal. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1995, Chapter 5.
  5. See note no. 4, Danziger and Gottschalk, Chapter 7.
  6. See note no. 4, Blank, pp. 52-55.
  7. Katz, L. Wage subsidies for the disadvantaged. Unpublished research paper. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1996; Lehman, J. Updating urban policy. In Confronting poverty: Prescriptions for change. S. Danziger, G. Sandefur, and D. Weinberg, eds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994, pp. 226-52.
  8. See note no. 7, Lehman, p. 234.
  9. Haveman, R., and Scholz, J.K. Taxes, transfers and welfare reform. National Tax Journal (June 1994) 47,2:417-34.
  10. Ellwood, D.T. Poor support: Poverty in the American family. New York: Basic Books, 1988; see also, note no. 4, Danziger and Gottschalk, Chapter 8.
  11. Blank, R. The employment strategy. In Confronting poverty: Prescriptions for change. S. Danziger, G. Sandefur, and D. Weinberg, eds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994, pp. 168-204; and Burtless, G., and Friedlander, D. Five years after: The long-term effects of welfare-to-work programs. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1995.
  12. U.S. Department of Labor, Office of the Chief Economist. What's working and what's not: What we know about getting people good skills and new jobs. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Labor, Office of the Chief Economist, 1995, available from (202) 219-5108; see also, note no. 11, Blank. The quality of the evidence on the effects of the skills programs discussed is high because it is derived from rigorous evaluations using randomized experimental and control groups.
  13. Long, D., Gueron, J., Wood, R., et al. Three year impacts of Ohio's welfare initiative to improve school attendance among teenage parents. New York: Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, April 1996; see note no. 12, U.S. Department of Labor, p. 22.
  14. See note no. 11, Burtless and Friedlander.
  15. Leigh, D.E. Can a voluntary workfare program change the behavior of welfare recipients? New evidence from Washington State's Family Independence Program (FIP). Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (Fall 1995) 14,4:567-89; see also, note no. 12, U.S. Department of Labor, pp. 24, 34-35. Most of these evaluations used a random experimental design that provides good estimates of the impact of voluntary programs. Because they are derived from self-selected samples, their impacts are not necessarily indicative of the effect of a similar mandatory program.
  16. The benefit of obtaining the GED certificate has been questioned because GED certificate holders generally fare worse in the labor market than do regular high school graduates. See Cameron, S.V., and Heckman, J.J. The nonequivalence of high school equivalents. Journal of Labor Economics (January 1993) 11,1:1-47; and Cao, J., Stromsdorfer, E.W., and Weeks, G. The human capital effect of general education development certificates on low-income women. Journal of Human Resources (Winter 1996) 31,1:206-21.
  17. Super, D., Parrott, S., Steinmetz, S., and Mann, C. The new welfare law. Washington, DC: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, August 14, 1996.
  18. Card, D., and Krueger, A. Myth and measurement: The new economics of the minimum wage. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.
  19. Burkhauser, R.V., Couch, K.A., and Wittenburg, D.C. "Who gets what" from minimum wage hikes: A re-estimation of Card and Krueger's distributional analysis in Myth and measurement: The new economics of the minimum wage. Industrial and Labor Relations Review (April 1996) 49,3:547-52.
  20. Bergmann, B. Child care: The key to ending child poverty. In Social policies for children. I. Garfinkel, J.L. Hochschild, and S.S. McLanahan, eds. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1996, pp. 112-35.
  21. Moffitt, R.M., and Slade, E. Arranging health care coverage for children. The Future of Children (Spring 1997) 7,1: 87-98.
  22. Yinger, J. Closed doors, opportunities lost: The continuing costs of housing discrimination. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1995; Rosenbaum, J., and Popkin, S. Employment and earnings of low-income blacks who move to middle-class suburbs. In The urban underclass. C. Jencks and P. Peterson, eds. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1991.
  23. Holzer, H. Black employment problems: New evidence, old questions. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (Fall 1994) 13,4:699-722.
  24. Garfinkel, I. Economic security for children: From means testing and bifurcation to universality. In Social policies for children. I. Garfinkel, J.L. Hochschild, and S.S. McLanahan, eds. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1996, pp. 38, 67, 68.
  25. Unemployment insurance and workers compensation also help families with children.
  26. U.S. House of Representatives, Ways and Means Committee. Overview of entitlement programs: 1996 green book. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1996.
  27. At this writing, there is considerable uncertainty about the interpretation, implementation, and implications of PRWORA. For initial explanation and discussion, see note no. 17, Super, Parrott, Steinmetz, and Mann; and note no. 26, U.S. House of Representatives, Appendix L.
  28. See note no. 26, U.S. House of Representatives, pp. 437-38, 448.
  29. See note no. 26, U.S. House of Representatives, p. 437-38, 448, 903.
  30. For further discussion of the fiscal effects of welfare block grants, see Chernick, H., and Reschovsky, A. State responses to block grants: Will the social safety net hold? The LaFollette Policy Report (Spring/Summer 1996) 7,2:1-4, 12-15.
  31. The $595 is the mean regardless of which family member(s) received it. The mean benefit paid specifically to children of deceased or disabled workers was $327 in 1991. Source for mean AFDC and specific children's benefits is U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means. Overview of entitlement programs: 1993 green book. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993, pp. 44-45, 685.
  32. Kearney, J.R., Grundmann, H.F., and Gallicchio, S.J. The influence of Social Security benefits and SSI payments on the poverty status of children. Social Security Bulletin (Summer 1994) 57,2:27-38.
  33. For detailed discussion of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), see Lav, I.J., and Lazere, E.B. A hand up: How state earned income credits help working families escape poverty. Washington, DC: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 1996, and also note no. 4, Blank, pp. 192-95.
  34. Robins, P. Federal financing of child care: Alternative approaches and economic implications. Population Research and Policy Review (January 1990) 9,1:65-90.
  35. Urban Institute. Potential effects of Congressional welfare reform legislation on family incomes [http://www.urban.org/pec72696.htm#r11]. August 1996.
  36. Since the EITC subsidizes earnings until they hit a specified limit, it provides incentives to start working and increase earnings up to the limit. For persons who would earn above the limit in the absence of the EITC, the income from the EITC and the phaseout of benefits, which implicitly taxes earnings, both exert work disincentives. The EITC can also create financial rewards or penalties for marriage versus living apart or cohabiting, depending on the earnings of the two partners.
  37. Evidence summarized in this and the following paragraph is from Moffitt, R. Incentive effects of the U.S. welfare system: A review. Journal of Economic Literature 30,1:1-61; Hoynes, H.W. Welfare transfers in two-parent families: Labor supply and welfare participation under AFDC-UP, Econometrica 64,2:295-332; Hoynes, H. Work, welfare and family structure: A review of the evidence. Discussion Paper 1103-96. Madison, WI: Institute for Research on Poverty, 1996.
  38. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. Marital status and living arrangements: March 1994. Current Population Reports, P-20, no. 484. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1996, Table 6.
  39. Meyer, D.R., and Hu, M. A note on the antipoverty effectiveness of child support among mother-only families. Unpublished research paper. Madison, WI: Institute for Research on Poverty, March 1996. The lack of improvement is partly attributable to the rising proportion of single-parent families headed by never-married women, who receive less support.
  40. Garfinkel, I., and McLanahan, S. Single-mother families and government policy. In Confronting poverty: Prescriptions for change. S. Danziger, G. Sandefur, and D. Weinberg, eds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994, pp. 205-25.
  41. Garfinkel, I., Meyer, D.R., and Sandefur, G.D. The effects of alternative child support systems on blacks, Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites. Social Service Review (December 1992) 66,4:505-23.
  42. Recent, unpublished research suggests that the effects of aggressive child support enforcement programs on child poverty may be less if these programs reduce the likelihood of marriage among noncustodial parents. Bloom, D.E., Conrad, C., and Miller, C. Child support and fathers remarriage and fertility. Working Paper No. 5781. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1996.
  43. Statistics in this section are from Rainwater, L., and Smeeding, T. Doing poorly: The real income of American children in a comparative perspective. Luxembourg Income Study Working Paper No. 127. Syracuse, NY: Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, August 1995. The study sets each nation's poverty line at 50% of its median household income. Because this "relative" approach differs from the procedure for determining the official U.S. poverty line, U.S. poverty statistics in this section cannot be compared directly to those in the rest of the article.
  44. However, while the posttransfer, posttax poverty rate was 21.5% for the United States, it was only 9.6% for Italy.
  45. See note no. 4, Danziger and Gottschalk, pp. 168-74.
  46. Heclo, H. Poverty politics. In Confronting poverty: Prescriptions for change. S. Danziger, G. Sandefur, and D. Weinberg, eds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994, pp. 396-437.