Conceptualizing Material Hardship: Perspectives from Low-Income Families in a Guaranteed Income Program

• In Event: Children, Poverty, and the Safety Net

Abstract

Background:  The US social welfare system centers on income; yet, income is only one dimension of economic wellbeing. Material hardship captures distinct aspects of economic wellbeing, and the limited extant evidence suggests material hardship may be a stronger predictor of some child and family wellbeing outcomes, including child protective service contact, parental and low-wage worker depression, and child behavior problems, and may be particularly important for understanding the economic precarity and subsequent wellbeing of those belonging to marginalized ethnoracial groups. Despite the likely importance of clearly understanding and measuring material hardship, there is no standard inventory of material hardship, and existing measures are not grounded in comprehensive conceptual or empirical work, as gold standard measures of similar constructs are. Moreover, we know crucial dimensions are missing from current material hardship measures, such as transportation hardship. The present study tackles this missing information directly, asking low-income families what essential needs they must meet, which basic economic needs they struggle to meet, and how they navigate meeting their essential needs when they do not have enough money to meet them all.  

Methods: Data come from semi-structured qualitative interviews conducted from 2023 to 2025 with a subgroup (N=32) of participants in the Los Angeles County (LAC) Breathe guaranteed income (GI) program, which provided $1,000 per month of unconditional cash to 1,000 individuals for three years and leveraged a randomized control trial design to evaluate its impact alongside 2,000 control participants. Study participants were parents (94% mothers) of young children, included GI recipients (n=15) and non-recipients (n=17), were ethnoracially diverse and were very low-income. We analyzed these data using a thematic analysis approach, incorporating both inductive and deductive coding. 

Results:  Preliminary results suggest seven consistent domains of material hardship, several of which align with the most commonly used inventory of material hardship questions (housing, food, health care, utilities) and some of which represent domains not typically captured in survey instruments (transportation, child necessities, childcare). Additionally, results demonstrate the importance of understanding specific forms of hardship in context, as participants described strategies to mitigate harmful outcomes, including prioritizing total avoidance of certain hardships, accepting certain degrees of other hardships, understanding their own exposure to hardship as distinct from their children’s exposure to hardship, and describing the social and emotional consequences of exposure to and strategies to mitigate material hardship. ​

Conclusion:  This study’s findings contribute specific evidence via participant voices directly to inform those domains of material hardship which may be important to consider in developing a robust inventory for consistent material hardship measurement. These data reflect the particular experiences of low-income families, including domains of hardship specific to households with children. Findings also highlight the necessity of understanding material hardship domains in relationship to one another, demonstrating the importance of sequencing in understanding cascades of material hardship exposure and highlighting the sophisticated strategies low-income families may employ to manage chronic risks of material hardship.

Author

• Margaret M. C. Thomas, The University of Chicago
  Presenting Author