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PovertyIssue Brief: State Strategies to Reduce Child and Family Poverty by the NGA Center for Best Practices Poverty has long-term social and economic costs for children and families, communities, and states. In 2006, more than 13 million children lived below the federal poverty level.1 Children who grow up poor are more likely to earn less as adults, complete fewer years of formal education, and face more health issues than children living in higher-income families. Poverty also contributes to poor social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes for children and hinders cognitive development. In short, poverty has large repercussions for states and the nation, with childhood poverty alone estimated to cost the U.S. economy approximately $500 billion annually. New Report Details Levels of Economic Insecurity and Job Quality in the States The federal poverty line does a poor job of measuring economic insecurity in the United States according to a new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). In the typical state, 22 percent of people in working families suffer from economic hardship because their earnings and income from other sources, including public work supports and other public benefits, fall below the basic needs budget standard for where they live. By comparison, only 12.6 percent of Americans live below the federal poverty line. The report, "Working Families and Economic Insecurity in the States: The Role of Job Quality and Work Supports," synthesizes previous CEPR research using a new approach for measuring economic insecurity that addresses the major limitations of the poverty line and analyzes the state of economically insecure families across 45 states and the District of Columbia. A new First Focus brief, The Child Tax Credit Gap: A Snapshot of Families Left Out, provides an interesting look at the working families who are unable to claim any part of the Child Tax Credit (CTC), one of the most important family-friendly tax provisions in the federal tax code. Currently the CTC excludes many low-income working families entirely, and many others are prevented from benefiting in full because the income floor, above which families can begin claiming a refund, is set too high and continues to grow each year. Fortunately, the House of Representatives recently passed legislation (HR 6049, the Energy and Tax Extenders Act of 2008) that would lower the income floor and allow more families to benefit. In fact, the families of more than 3 million children would become newly eligible for the CTC if this legislation were signed into law. How to Improve Poverty Measurement in the United States Rebecca M. Blank, University of Michigan and Brookings Institution Poverty Is Poison By PAUL KRUGMAN, OP-ED COLUMNIST, The New York Times - February 18, 2008 Poverty Mars Formation of Infant Brains By Clive Cookson in Boston - February 16 2008 POVERTY, PRIVILEGE, AND BRAIN DEVELOPMENT: EMPIRICAL FINDINGS AND ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS Martha J. Farah, Kimberly G. Noble and Hallam Hurt, University of Pennsylvania Updated: Jun 10th, 2008 - 09:14:08 |
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