Nearly eleven million kids live in poverty in the U.S., or 1 out of 7 children. In the land of opportunity, many are denied resources equal to that of their own peers. With millions of children falling behind due to lack of food, stable housing, and healthcare, there is ample work to be done. Current assistance for low-income children and their parents is a patchwork of niche programs, temporary assistance, needless requirements, and bureaucratic burdens. 

To fix these broken aspects, assistance to the poor should embrace the goal of ensuring each child receives, at a minimum, adequate nutrition, housing, and healthcare. With the implementation of properly targeted policies, we can completely change the lives of children.

Cash For Kids

“There’s always more month than money” - “Scarcity” by Mullainthan and Shafir

Through its welfare reforms, the Clinton administration shifted the share of federal spending on benefits from parents without earnings to those with earnings. This removed support for society’s most vulnerable by imposing work requirements and time restrictions that pushed families off assistance. A growing body of research finds that work requirements place unnecessary burdens on both the agencies and recipients. State agencies are under-resourced to properly manage recipient cases, often wrongly removing recipients. Those on assistance also do not have the resources to consistently verify their working status and take time off work to attend verification meetings. Most importantly, the objective of work requirements was to encourage employment: they instead do not increase employment while imposing barriers to assistance for those most vulnerable. 

In the effort of promoting poor families to work, we actively discourage it. The system punishes financial advancement by implicitly taxing increases in earnings—it drastically reduces benefits for families just above the poverty line. For example, on average a $1,000 increase in earnings is marginally taxed at 40%: this leaves only an increase of $600 after accounting for the consequential decrease in benefits. Researchers also found that one in four low wage workers face marginal tax rates of 70%, effectively locking them into poverty. This is because many programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) essentially tax each additional dollar earned by phasing out benefits as income rises too soon. 

The goal of providing assistance to children should be to cover a basic level of necessities, since unlike many adults, children cannot work. A child allowance provides an unconditional amount of money to cover basic necessities that would help achieve universal goals such as healthier, more educated, and independent children that will become productive citizens. Democrats have passed a monthly child allowance that began this July that provides $300 a month to each child 0-5 years old, and $250 a month to each child 6-17 years old. This allowance is projected to cut child poverty by 45%. This allowance is temporary, only lasting a year, but must be made permanent and improved upon to be both efficient and effective.

The Family Security Act by Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) would also provide a monthly allowance, but at $350 a month to each child 0-5 years old, and $250 a month for children 6-17 years old. An especially unique feature is that parents have the option to receive the $350 monthly benefit four months prior to the birth of the baby. Additionally, it would be completely deficit neutral as there are a multitude of changes to offset the costs through simplification of the tax code and benefits. Romney's plan would eliminate other costly and inefficient solutions that provide little help to those who need it, as other programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the previous Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) are inadequate and difficult to access. By eliminating the conglomeration of half-baked programs, child welfare can be simplified and allocated to those who need it most.

The Family Security Act is incredibly monumental due to potential massive poverty reduction and its accompanying effects. The Niskanen Center, a non-partisan think tank, has estimated that 5.1 million people would be lifted out of poverty, more than half of them children. Accompanying effects of cash benefits to parents and children are widespread. For many that value a strong family and incentivizing work instead of dependence, the child allowance does both by increasing family stability as families spend more on education and health, and less on tobacco and alcohol, thereby reducing stress. A child allowance has shown to have a small, or no negative effect on hours worked for families. Cash transfer effects on children show increased test scores, lifetime earnings, mental and physical health, and college enrollment. For families, the policy increased nutrition, rent, childcare and decreased hospitalizations. The current smaller child allowance has already reduced food insecurity by 3.3 million (a 30% decrease) in its first month according to the U.S. Census Bureau survey. Financial hardship fell as many spent the money on food, utilities, and rent/mortgage. Additionally, 3 million children were lifted out of poverty in July alone, a reduction of 25.6%.

Broad cash benefits are not a new policy. Social Security provides monthly cash benefits to Americans 65 and older. Social Security is the largest source of poverty alleviation in the U.S. and is one of the only cash-based welfare policies. Taking care of society’s most vulnerable is necessary, and it's time that children are included. 

SNAP Program

An estimated 14 million children in the United States are in households that are food insecure. To combat this pervasive problem, the government should strengthen the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). 

The USDA announced that this October benefits will be increased, on average by 27%. It is the largest permanent increase in benefits ever. Prior to the increase the average SNAP household redeemed three-quarters of their benefits only halfway through the month. Studies have found that those who receive SNAP increase household spending on food, housing, and education while reducing healthcare costs and poverty. As adults, children who received SNAP benefits worked more, earned more, lived longer, and were less likely to be incarcerated. When considering all these effects, the program literally “pays for itself” in the long run saving billions of taxpayer dollars. Pairing the increase in benefits with higher income thresholds and eliminating asset limits would allow the program to become available to more working families who would otherwise not be able to afford adequate food.

SNAP benefits must also be allowed to be used more widely. By allowing families to buy food online, those who work or those with disabilities can have food delivered to their home or picked up curbside. These are important, even if seemingly small, changes that ease food access and decrease child hunger. It is also necessary to remove restrictions on allowable foods, specifically “prepared foods fit for immediate consumption” and foods that are “hot at the point of sale”. SNAP’s odd regulations allow recipients to buy frozen chicken, but not a warm rotisserie chicken. The USDA has estimated about 19 million Americans live in areas that are both low-income and low-access to a grocery store. So why regulate with such a paternalistic attitude the food choices of those with the least amount of options? Allowing freedom of choice, whether it is choice of how to purchase, what to purchase, or simply having enough grocery money, is important to restoring a sense of humanity in the American social insurance system.

Conclusion

While this is not remotely close to all that is needed to improve the lives of those in poverty, these would be monumental steps. The cost of child poverty, whether in additional healthcare costs, crime, and lost productivity, is something that is unsustainable. If children are the future, we should act like it. Research and evidence based programs have been outlined, and it is time to make them happen. A rising tide lifts all boats. Here the rising tides must be centered on equitable opportunities in housing, food, and healthcare, and they will uplift the children, communities, and country.