Person-Based and Place-Based Investments in Children

• In Event: Measuring and Modeling Cross-State Variation in Social Policy for Children and Families

Abstract

Federal, state, and local governments provide essential resources for children, especially those in poverty. Public policy investments frequently use person- or place-based approaches, and each can translate into positive outcomes for children. While person-based interventions supply direct aid to children and families living in or near poverty, place-based policies aim to address the symptoms of concentrated poverty, often by increasing available housing stock, investing in under-resourced schools, expanding health infrastructure and economic prospects, or through the mitigation of crime. Public investment in economically disadvantaged places has become a politically popular means for the United States government to address poverty; as such, there has been a notable increase in place-based federal policymaking over the past three decades. A large body of literature has documented the effects of individual social safety net programs on children, adults, and families, while studies on place-based investment tends to focus on a single program, site, or time period. Yet there are compelling reasons to examine person- and place-based policies in combination, given the collective impact they may have on patterning children’s life chances. Furthermore, research has documented the important role of states as actors in designing and implementing policies, which can differentially shape the health and well-being of children across state lines. It is unclear whether person-based and place-based policies follow similar or divergent paths according to political, economic, and social factors at the state-level, and in turn, whether these policy apparatuses either offset or reinforce the resources available to families with children. On the one hand, person- and place-based investments might be correlated and clustered within specific states with traditionally more robust social safety-nets over time in a process of cumulative advantage. Alternatively, these funding streams may be progressive, where states with fewer person-based investments in children living in or near poverty receive more place-based investment that works to offset this deficit.  To date, research on person-based and place-based investments remains disconnected. It is unclear how strongly related these interventions are, and how they may work together to either offset or reinforce inequality in financial resources and support available to children. We examine both person-based and place-based government investments in U.S. children over time, between 1997 to 2019. Using two primary sources of data—the State-by-State Spending on Kids dataset and a comprehensive dataset on federal place-based policies—we ask: to what extent are person-based and place-based investments in children correlated? Although there are examples of states with low-levels of both person-based and place-based funding, we find that states with fewer investments in children living in poverty tend to receive more place-based investment that works to offset this deficit. Our results also indicate that states maintain their hierarchical rank ordering over our time series, which translates into large person-based and place-based funding gaps between states.

Author

• Alexandra Cooperstock, Teachers College, Columbia University
  Presenting Author