Poverty, Policy, and Economic Supports in Early Childhood

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Early childhood is a special period of development that warrants a focus on concerted policy attention. First, infancy and early childhood is the time where poverty rates are the highest across childhood, particularly surrounding a birth (Wimer et al., 2020; Stanczyk, 2020; Hamilton et al., 2023). Second, early childhood is thought to be a particularly sensitive period for children’s biological and social development, a time when inputs like income and other forms of economic support can set the stage for children’s long-term success (Hart et al., 2024). Third, early childhood is a period when the costs of raising children are particularly elevated and acute, especially given the need for child care and other costs of caring for new children in a household. This panel examines economic supports for parents of young children in the United States, focusing on the time of a birth, utilization of cash during children’s earliest years, and formally accounting for child care and child care subsidies in the measurement of poverty among families with young children.

Paper 1, by Colleen Heflin, utilizes administrative data from Oregon to examine work and safety net participation surrounding the birth of a child, using sequence analysis methods. The time of a birth is a time of vulnerability in the absence of paid leave, with families losing income from earnings and the labor market, and having to access government income supports to compensate. The paper finds that most low-income mothers of newborns utilize safety net programs following a birth, especially the SNAP program, which spikes in the period shortly thereafter.

Paper 2, by Grace Landrum and colleagues, uses qualitative data from the Baby’s First Years study – a Randomized Controlled Trial of the effects of unrestricted cash payments on family and child outcomes. The paper seeks to understand how the constellation of safety net programs for families with young children experiencing periods of low income does and does not support the need for expenses on “invisible, but hypervisible” necessary expenses like aspirin, diapers, and hygiene products – expenses that are routine and critical to raising children, are not typically supported by safety net programs, and failure to attain may leave families vulnerable to state surveillance and punishment.

Paper 3, by Christopher Wimer and colleagues, builds on recommendations by a recent National Academies of Sciences panel on advancing poverty measurement in the United States to create a Child Care Inclusive Poverty Measure (CCIPM). The CCIPM incorporates the need for child care into the poverty thresholds, and develops a methodology for valuing paid, unpaid, and subsidized child care in the poverty measure’s resources. It finds that child care needs significantly increase the poverty line for families with young children, but that government child care subsidies make a substantial dent in young children’s poverty rates.

Together, the papers spotlight issues related to how policy and economic supports in early childhood play out in families’ and children’s lives, buffering (or not) against experiences of poverty and material hardship.

Policy Area

• Poverty and Income Policy

Secondary Policy Area

• Family and Child Policy

Chair

• Monika Nayak, University of California - Los Angeles

Discussants

• Taryn W. Morrissey, American University

• Christal Hamilton, University of Connecticut

Organizer

• Christopher Wimer, Columbia University

Individual Presentations

• First-time mothers work and safety net participation around birth - Presenting Author: Colleen M Heflin, Syracuse University; Non-Presenting Co-Author: David Rothwell, Oregon State University

• “Invisible” Needs and Hypervisible Families - Presenting Author: Grace Landrum-Hall, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Carolyn Barnes, The University of Chicago; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Sarah Halpern-Meekin, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Jill Hoiting

• Towards a Child Care Inclusive Poverty Measure - Presenting Author: Christopher Wimer, Columbia University; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Danielle Wilson, American University; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Jiwan Lee, Brown University; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Sarah E Bohn, Public Policy Institute of California; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Robert Paul Hartley, Columbia University; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Jane Waldfogel, Columbia University

• The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Educational Outcomes for Children with and without Disabilities: Evidence from Texas - Presenting Author: Pyung Kim, University of Texas, Dallas