Reducing Intergenerational Poverty (2024) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 21-38
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lived in families with incomes below the poverty line.1 These children face a multitude of disadvantages that, taken together, ensure that they will not have the same opportunities to achieve adult success as will children from more advantaged backgrounds. Abundant research has shown that children living in households in poverty are more likely than their more affluent peers to struggle in school and to suffer from poor health and other problems (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine [National Academies]
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data are differences in these intergenerational mobility rates across children in different racial and ethnic groups. Broadly speaking, rates of intergenerational poverty persistence are relatively similar for White, Latino, Asian, and immigrant children, but much higher for native-born Black and, especially, Native American children.3 A congressionally mandated National Academies study committee -- the Committee on Building an Agenda to Reduce the Number of Children in Poverty by Half in 10 Years -- produced a report on short-term strategies for reducing the number of children living in poverty in the United States 2 The "bottom rungs" refers to children growing up with family incomes in the bottom quintile of the distribution, and "well above" is defined as incomes in the top three quintiles of the adult income distribution when they were in their 30s.
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The principal elements of the congressional charge were to identify key drivers of long-term, intergenerational poverty, including the racial disparities and structural factors that contribute to this cycle; to assess existing research on the effects on intergenerational poverty of major assistance, education, and other intervention programs; and, most important, to identify evidence-based policies and programs that have the potential to significantly reduce the effects of the key drivers of intergenerational poverty. Finally, the committee was asked to identify high-priority gaps in the data and research needed to help develop effective policies for reducing intergenerational poverty in the United States.
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In review ing the literature, the committee will: parents and caregivers;4 researchers with expertise in the child welfare and justice systems; community leaders and researchers with expertise on Native American communities; community-based service providers serving rural areas, Alaskan Native and Native Hawaiian communities, and Latino communities; and federal-level public policy experts. A summary of these sessions is included in Appendix B
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4. Identify key, high-priority gaps in the research needed to help develop effective policies for reducing intergenerational poverty in the United States.
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Chapter 11 briefly summarizes what the committee has learned and identifies the gaps in the data and research needed to develop effective policies for reducing intergenerational poverty in the United States that the committee regards as most pressing. DEFINING INTERGENERATIONAL POVERTY The Statement of Task explicitly instructs the committee to use an economic definition of intergenerational poverty: the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM)
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Child poverty rates in 2021 were only 5.2%, but that low rate can be attributed to pandemic relief policies, such as the expansion of the Child Tax Credit to very-low-income parents. Moreover, many children not classified as in poverty are nevertheless living in families with incomes not far above the poverty line.
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. APPLYING A RACIAL/ETHNIC LENS IN ASSESSING THE EVIDENCE The Statement of Task directs the committee to "apply a racial/ethnic disparities lens" in assessing the evidence on the determinants of and solutions to intergenerational poverty, and to "evaluate the racial disparities and structural factors that contribute to this cycle." The importance of applying a racial disparities lens is highlighted in the research reviewed in Chapter 2, which shows that Black and Native American people are much more likely than White Americans to experience intergenerational poverty and downward economic mobility.
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The committee provides a citation-rich narration of this racialization of Black and Native American people in the United States as well as a review of continuing practices of disparate treatment and their impacts on intergenerational mobility in Chapter 3 and its appendix. Also, in Chapter 3 and throughout the report, we describe empirical trends and patterns in education, health, households, crime and incarceration, and the labor market that
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CRITERIA FOR SELECTING PROGRAM AND POLICY INTERVENTIONS The committee examined research studies across the seven domains and used several criteria to identify policies and programs directed at children currently living in poverty that show strong evidence of reducing those children's chances of being poor as adults. Within each of the seven domains, the committee cast a wide net for programs or policies that might reduce intergenerational poverty, both overall and among children in certain racial and ethnic minority groups.
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It decided to feature these kinds of considerations in its discussion of policy and program implementation but not in its identification decision of featured programs and policy ideas supported by strong evidence. Direct Evidence Policies and Programs The committee reviewed both direct and indirect evidence on policies and programs that might reduce intergenerational poverty (Figure 1-1)
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In other cases, direct evidence gathered on the impacts of policies and programs is less robust. A methodologically strong study 6 We considered high school graduation as a close correlate of adult poverty because it serves as a gateway for additional training and more than 80% of adults with a high school diploma but no additional formal schooling had household incomes above the poverty line (Semega & Koller, 2021)
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. Indirect Evidence Policies and Programs Indirect evidence comes from coupling shorter-run evidence on program effectiveness with other kinds of information on longitudinal linkages between these shorter-run outcomes and intergenerational outcomes.
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Taken together, these rules regarding direct and indirect evidence seemed to the committee to strike a reasonable balance between the need for evidence on intergenerational impacts and the challenge of evolving counterfactual conditions.
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Strength of the Research Evidence: A Summary The committee built into its classification of policies and programs considerations of historical timing, distinctions between direct and indirect evidence, and the categorization of direct evidence as "strong" or merely BOX 1-3 Standards of Evidence Used in Identifying Program and Policy Ideas: Strong Direct Evidence, Promising Direct Evidence, Indirect Evidence, and Other Evidence Direct evidence – evaluation studies based on random-assignment or compel ling quasi-experimental methods linking recent (post-1990) implementations of a childhood or adolescent program or policy to improvements in adult correlates of poverty status (such as completed schooling or earnings)
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It also discusses policy and program ideas supported by what it considers to be promising direct evidence, plus indirect evidence. Most of the details about indirect-evidence studies are provided in Appendix C
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However, both in listening sessions with low-income families and in reviewing the research, the committee found clear evidence of the multifaceted nature of poverty. Families struggling financially are often the same families that have limited access to highquality health care, education, and neighborhoods, and that have increased negative interactions with the criminal justice and child welfare systems.
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Some important issues spanned multiple domains. For example, child care needs and policies arise in discussions of education, health, parental earnings, family structure, and child welfare.
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