Boosting Low-Income Children's Opportunities to Succeed Through Direct Income Support

Direct income supports have long been known to substantially reduce the extent and depth of poverty. Evidence suggests that they can also bolster children's opportunities to succeed and enhance long-term mobility. A growing body of research, for example, links income from 2 related tax credits for working families—the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit—to benefits for children in those families, such as improved birth weight, better school outcomes, and increased rates of employment in adulthood. Similarly, the introduction of food stamps has been found to improve not only the birth weight of infants given access to the program but also their educational achievement, as well as indicators of health, well-being, and self-sufficiency decades later. These are striking research results for income support that is not typically thought of as improving children's health or education. The mechanisms through which these income supports lead to such benefits are likely varied and complex, but emerging research suggests that helping families with children afford basic necessities can reduce the added stress of financial difficulties, preventing downstream neuroendocrine and biochemical changes that affect children's longer-term outcomes. These findings have important implications for policy makers. Research suggests that potential weakening of the safety net would not only substantially increase poverty, but also have damaging long-term effects on children. Policy makers should reject funding cuts and instead strengthen the safety net, which this analysis suggests could reduce poverty further and also enhance children's opportunities to succeed.