A Universal Child Income: Implications for Policy, Poverty, and Child Development

Indianapolis, IN

For a growing number of scholars, policy analysts, and child development specialists, a universal child income is cited as an efficient and effective response to child poverty. Support often stems from the fact that child poverty is pervasive in the United States, especially in relation to other developed countries. About 20 percent of children live below the federal poverty threshold, and about nine percent live in deep poverty. Moreover, an extensive body of research on child development suggests that living in poverty, particularly for the first several years of life, has lasting negative consequences for lifetime earnings, education, and health. Child poverty persists despite considerable federal anti-poverty efforts. As levels of deep poverty suggest, however, the United States’ safety net is not set up to guarantee a minimum standard of subsistence. Work requirements and five-year limits attached to TANF have contributed to a growing population of parents disconnected from both cash assistance and the labor market. A guaranteed children’s income, in contrast, would provide a cash payment to every citizen parent or guardian, without regard to financial status or work activity. For low-income children, and the desperately poor in particular, evidence suggests that direct cash assistance could have life-long implications for education, health, and earnings. Given the body of research on child development and the increasing centrality of guaranteed income to poverty debates, it is timely to investigate the effects of a universal child income on child poverty, development, and lifetime success.