Bolstering Family Income Is Essential to Helping Children Emerge Successfully From the Current Crisis
End Notes
[1] CBPP analysis of U.S. Census Bureau’s basic monthly Current Population Survey (CPS) public use microdata files. Figures are not seasonally adjusted.
[2] U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Supplemental data measuring the effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on the labor market, Table 9, at https://www.bls.gov/cps/effects-of-the-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic.htm.
[3] CBPP analysis of U.S. Census Bureau’s basic monthly CPS public use microdata and COVID-19 supplemental data files at www.census.gov/data/datasets/time-series/demo/cps/cps-supp_cps-repwgt/cps-covid.html. The Labor Department reports that, counting workers with paid absences from work, as well as those who lost some work in the last four weeks but still worked in the last week, a total of 14.8 million adults were unable to work at some point in the last four weeks because their employer closed or lost business due to the coronavirus pandemic.
[4] These estimates may be conservative. The pandemic-related questions in the CPS focus prominently on the pandemic’s impact on the employer and may not capture all virus-related reasons for missing work. The Household Pulse Survey asks a more detailed question about pandemic-related reasons for not working. Although the Pulse survey is not designed to produce precise counts of children, analysis of Pulse data from late January suggests roughly 2 million children live with an adult who did not do any paid work in the last seven days because the adult was sick with coronavirus symptoms. For another 2 to 3 million children, the adult did not work because they were caring for children out of school (and the students’ school was closed or used distance learning).
[5] The range reflects the different ways to measure food hardship in the Household Pulse Survey. The survey asks two questions about not eating enough, one for the household as a whole, another for children. The second question is asked only of respondents whose answer to the first question was “enough, but not always the kinds of foods we wanted,” “sometimes not enough,” or “often not enough.” The lower end of the range we report is the share of respondents who said the household had not enough to eat “sometimes” or “often” and the children did not have enough to eat “sometimes” or “often.” The upper end of the range is the share of all respondents asked the second question who said the children did not have enough to eat “sometimes” or “often.”
[6] To adjust for non-response in the Pulse survey, we apply the share not caught up on rent to the total number of adult renters in the March 2020 CPS to calculate an adjusted estimate. For more on item non-response to the housing questions in the Pulse Survey, see CBPP, “Tracking the COVID-19 Recession’s Effects on Food, Housing, and Employment Hardships,” updated February 24, 2021, https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/tracking-the-covid-19-recessions-effects-on-food-housing-and.
[7] For more on the differences between the two surveys, see Sharon Parrott et al., “More Relief Needed to Alleviate Hardship,” CBPP, July 21, 2020, https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/more-relief-needed-to-alleviate-hardship.
[8] See Lauren Bauer, “The COVID-19 crisis has already left too many children hungry in America,” Brookings Institution, May 6, 2020, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/05/06/the-covid-19-crisis-has-already-left-too-many-children-hungry-in-america; Lauren Bauer, “About 14 million children in the US are not getting enough to eat,” Brookings Institution, July 9, 2020, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/07/09/about-14-million-children-in-the-us-are-not-getting-enough-to-eat; Diane Schanzenbach and Abigail Pitts, “Food Insecurity Triples for Families With Children During COVID-19 Pandemic,” Northwestern University Institute for Policy Research, May 13, 2020, https://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/news/2020/food-insecurity-triples-for-families-during-covid.html; Diane Schanzenbach and Abigail Pitts, “How Much Has Food Insecurity Risen? Evidence from the Census Household Pulse Survey,” Northwestern University Institute for Policy Research, June 10, 2020, https://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/documents/reports/ipr-rapid-research-reports-pulse-hh-data-10-june-2020.pdf.
[9] This figure is the upper end of the range, as explained above.
[10] Chad Stone, “Jobs Recovery Stalled in December, Highlighting Importance of Further Relief and Stimulus Measures,” CBPP, January 12, 2021, https://www.cbpp.org/research/economy/jobs-recovery-stalled-in-december-highlighting-importance-of-further-relief-and.
[11] Claire Zippel, “Hardship Growing as Pandemic Enters 11th Month, New Census Figures Show,” CBPP, January 8, 2021, https://www.cbpp.org/blog/hardship-growing-as-pandemic-enters-11th-month-new-census-figures-show.
[12] The range reflects the different ways to measure food hardship in the Household Pulse Survey. See above.
[13] Karla L Hanson and Leah M Connor, “Food insecurity and dietary quality in US adults and children: a systematic review,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 100, No. 2, August 2014, https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.114.084525.
[14] Brynne Keith-Jennings, “Boosting SNAP: Benefit Increase Would Help Children in Short and Long Term,” CBPP, July 30, 2020, https://www.cbpp.org/blog/boosting-snap-benefit-increase-would-help-children-in-short-and-long-term.
[15] Erik Gartland, “Wave of Evictions Nears as Moratorium Set to Expire,” CBPP, December 9, 2020, https://www.cbpp.org/blog/wave-of-evictions-nears-as-moratorium-set-to-expire.
[16] See Sonya Acosta, Anna Bailey, and Peggy Bailey, “Extend CARES Act Eviction Moratorium, Combine With Rental Assistance to Promote Housing Stability,” CBPP, updated July 27, 2020, https://www.cbpp.org/research/housing/extend-cares-act-eviction-moratorium-combine-with-rental-assistance-to-promote.
[17] CBPP, “Tracking the COVID-19 Recession’s Effects on Food, Housing, and Employment Hardships.”
[18] Ajay Chaudry and Christopher Wimer, “Poverty is Not Just an Indicator: The Relationship Between Income, Poverty, and Child Well-Being,” Academic Pediatrics, Vol. 16, No. 3S, April 2016, https://www.academicpedsjnl.net/article/S1876-2859(15)00383-6/fulltext/; Elizabeth T. Gershoff et al., “Income Is Not Enough: Incorporating Material Hardship Into Models of Income Associations With Parenting and Child Development,” Child Development, Vol. 78, No. 1, January/February 2007, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2835994/; Joan P. Yoo, Kristen S. Slack, and Jane L. Holl, “Material Hardship and the Physical Health of School-Aged Children in Low-Income Households,” American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 99, No. 5, May 2009, https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdfplus/10.2105/AJPH.2007.119776; Afshin Zilanawala and Natasha V. Pilkauskas, “Material hardship and child socioemotional behaviors: Differences by types of hardship, timing, and duration,” Children and Youth Services Review, Vol. 34, No. 4, April 2012, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0190740912000230.
[19] National Multifamily Housing Council Rent Payment Tracker, updated February 9, 2021, https://www.nmhc.org/research-insight/nmhc-rent-payment-tracker/.
These data come from a survey of 11.6 million professionally managed apartment units across the country. The survey does not represent all landlords, and in particular misses smaller landlords that may be more likely to rent to households with lower incomes.
[20] This report uses the term “Latino” to refer to people of any race who identify as Hispanic or Latino in Census surveys. The racial and ethnic categories used in this report are mutually exclusive and exhaustive.
[21] Chad Stone, “Robust Unemployment Insurance, Other Relief Needed to Mitigate Racial and Ethnic Unemployment Disparities,” CBPP, August 5, 2020, https://www.cbpp.org/research/economy/robust-unemployment-insurance-other-relief-needed-to-mitigate-racial-and-ethnic.
[22] Neil Bhutta et al., “Disparities in Wealth by Race and Ethnicity in the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances,” Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, September 28, 2020, https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/disparities-in-wealth-by-race-and-ethnicity-in-the-2019-survey-of-consumer-finances-20200928.htm.
[23] CBPP, “Tracking the COVID-19 Recession’s Effects on Food, Housing, and Employment Hardships.”
[24] Gershoff et al. See also April S. Masarik and Rand D. Conger, “Stress and Child Development: A Review of the Family Stress Model,” Current Opinion in Psychology, Vol. 13, pp. 85-90, https://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1238&context=psych_facpubs; Rand D. Conger et al., “Economic Stress, Coercive Family Process, and Developmental Problems of Adolescents,” Child Development, Vol. 65, No. 2, April 1994, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1131401; Rand D. Conger et al., “Economic pressure in African American families: a replication and extension of the family stress model,” Developmental Psychology, Vol. 38, No. 2, March 2002, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11881755/.
[25] National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, “Connecting the Brain to the Rest of the Body: Early Childhood Development and Lifelong Health Are Deeply Intertwined,” Working Paper No. 15, June 2020, https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/connecting-the-brain-to-the-rest-of-the-body-early-childhood-development-and-lifelong-health-are-deeply-intertwined/.
[26] Anna Aizer, Laura Stroud, and Stephen Buka, “Maternal Stress and Child Outcomes: Evidence from Siblings,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 18422, 2012, https://www.nber.org/papers/w18422.
[27] Nirmita Panchal et al., “The Implications of COVID-19 for Mental Health and Substance Use,” Kaiser Family Foundation, February 10, 2021, https://www.kff.org/report-section/the-implications-of-covid-19-for-mental-health-and-substance-use-issue-brief/.
The authors calculated the share of adults with symptoms of anxiety or depression in January-July 2019 with the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). The mental health questions in the Pulse survey were adapted from the NHIS.
Estimates are calculated using composite scores shown to be associated with diagnoses of major depressive disorder or generalized anxiety disorder. For adults with symptoms at these levels, evaluation by a clinician or other health professional is generally recommended. For more details, see Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, “Anxiety and Depression: Household Pulse Survey,” https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/pulse/mental-health.htm.
[28] Patrick Cooney and H. Luke Shaefer, “Trends in Hardship and Mental Health in the United States at the End of 2020,” University of Michigan Poverty Solutions, February 2021, https://poverty.umich.edu/files/2021/02/PovertySolutionsMaterialHardshipEndof2020-Feb2021.pdf.
[29] Those who struggle to pay bills may be more likely to experience these symptoms for a variety of reasons. Estimates are calculated using the composite scores described above. The share with symptoms of anxiety excludes respondents who did not answer one or both of the Pulse survey’s two questions about anxiety symptoms (21 of all respondents). The share with symptoms of depression excludes respondents who did not answer one or both of the survey’s two questions about symptoms of depression (also 21 percent of all respondents).
[30] These calculations exclude respondents who did not answer one or more of the Pulse survey’s four questions about depression or anxiety symptoms (21 percent of all respondents). Adults who identified as Black, Latino, Asian, or as American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, or multiracial were less likely than white adults to answer all four questions.
[31] Estimates are calculated using the composite scores described above. These calculations exclude respondents who did not answer one or more of the Pulse survey’s four questions about depression or anxiety symptoms.
[32] Rapid Assessment of Pandemic Impact on Development Early Childhood Household Survey Project, “A Hardship Chain Reaction,” University of Oregon, https://medium.com/rapid-ec-project/a-hardship-chain-reaction-3c3f3577b30.
[33] LaDonna Pavetti, “Children in Distress Due to Increased Hardship: An Interview With Dr. Philip A. Fisher,” CBPP, February 23, 2021, https://www.cbpp.org/blog/children-in-distress-due-to-increased-hardship-an-interview-with-dr-philip-a-fisher.
[34] Keith-Jennings.
[35] Hilary Hoynes, Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, and Douglas Almond, “Long-Run Impacts of Childhood Access to the Safety Net,” American Economic Review, Vol. 106, No. 4, April 2016. An earlier version of the paper is at http://www.nber.org/papers/w18535. See also Martha Bailey et al., “Is the Social Safety Net a Long-Term Investment? Large-Scale Evidence from the Food Stamps Program,” Goldman School of Public Policy Working Paper, April 2020, https://gspp.berkeley.edu/assets/uploads/research/pdf/w26942.pdf; Chloe N. East, “The Effect of Food Stamps on Children’s Health: Evidence from Immigrants’ Changing Eligibility,” Journal of Human Resources, September 2018, http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2018/09/04/jhr.55.3.0916-8197R2.abstract; and Steven Carlson and Brynne Keith-Jennings, “SNAP Is Linked with Improved Nutritional Outcomes and Lower Health Care Costs,” CBPP, January 17, 2018, https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/snap-is-linked-with-improved-nutritional-outcomes-and-lower-health-care.
[36] Hoynes, Schanzenbach, and Almond.
[37] Mary Cunningham and Graham MacDonald, “Housing as a Platform for Improving Education Outcomes among Low-Income Children,” Urban Institute, May 7, 2012, https://www.urban.org/research/publication/housing-platform-improving-education-outcomes-among-low-income-children; Kathleen M. Ziol-Guest and Claire C. McKenna, “Early childhood housing instability and school readiness,” Child Development, 2013, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23534607/; Kathleen Ziol-Guest and Ariel Kalil, “Frequent Moves in Childhood Can Affect Later Earnings, Work, and Education,” MacArthur Foundation, March 2014, https://housingmatters.urban.org/sites/default/files/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/How-Housing-Matters-Policy-Research-Brief-Frequent-Moves-in-Childhood-Can-Affect-Later-Earnings-Work-and-Education.pdf.
[38] Will Fischer, Douglas Rice, and Alicia Mazzara, “Research Shows Rental Assistance Reduces Hardship and Provides Platform to Expand Opportunity for Low-Income Families,” CBPP, December 5, 2019, https://www.cbpp.org/research/housing/research-shows-rental-assistance-reduces-hardship-and-provides-platform-to-expand.
[39] David H. Rubin et al., “Cognitive and academic functioning of homeless children compared with housed children,” Pediatrics, Vol. 97, No. 3, March 1996, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8604259/. Rubin and colleagues found, after controlling for differences in socioeconomic status, demographic characteristics, and schools, that homeless children scored lower on tests of reading, spelling, and math proficiency. Similar results have been found in more recent studies.
[40] Michelle Wood, Jennifer Turnham, and Gregory Mills, “Housing affordability and family well-being: Results from the housing voucher evaluation,” Housing Policy Debate, Vol. 19, No. 2, January 2008, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10511482.2008.9521639. This study did not collect data on school outcomes.
[41] National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, “A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty,” National Academies Press, 2019, https://www.nap.edu/read/25246.
[42] Arloc Sherman and Tazra Mitchell, “Economic Security Programs Help Low-Income Children Succeed Over Long Term, Many Studies Find,” CBPP, July 17, 2017, https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/economic-security-programs-help-low-income-children-succeed-over.
[43] Pamela A. Morris, Lisa A. Gennetian, and Greg J. Duncan, “Effects of Welfare and Employment Policies on Young Children: New Findings on Policy Experiments Conducted in the Early 1990s,” Social Policy Report, Vol. 19, No. 2, 2005, http://www.srcd.org/sites/default/files/documents/spr19-2.pdf.
[44] Pamela A. Morris, “The Effects of Welfare Reform Policies on Children,” Social Policy Report, Vol. 16, No. 1, 2002, http://srcd.org/sites/default/files/documents/spr16-1.pdf.
[45] Irwin Garfinkel et al., “The Costs and Benefits of a Child Allowance,” Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, February 18, 2021,
https://www.povertycenter.columbia.edu/news-internal/2021/child-allowance/cost-benefit-analysis.