On September 16, I had the distinct pleasure of moderating a meeting of the minds with three social work research scholars who have been engaged in shaping policies designed to support the development of children in the United States for decades. I’ve known fellow Columbians Jane Waldfogel and Irv Garfinkel since my time as a doctoral student in the late 1990s. Irv was my dissertation chair. Joining us was Michael Sherraden, the George Warren Brown Distinguished Professor at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, whom I’ve known for at least a decade and have worked with to introduce federal legislation for child development accounts.
The occasion was the recent release of Jane’s latest book, Child Benefits: A Smart Investment for America’s Future, published by the Russell Sage Foundation. It was a stimulating discussion about the challenges in developing policies to support children and families. The United States has one of the highest child poverty rates among wealthy countries. It stands out among its peers as the only country that does not offer a child benefit, which are regular payments from the government to most or all families with children, regardless of their employment status.
The U.S. system of supporting children has leaned more toward crisis intervention than proactive child development, dating back to the founding of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in 1874. Federal funding for child welfare services started with the Social Security Act, and the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) of 1974 provided funding to states to develop and strengthen their child protective service systems. The focus has swung between child safety and family preservation. Policymakers have had to navigate a structural maze defined by federalism, a complex web of entitlements, block grants, and discretionary programs.
In addition to economic insecurity, too many children and families face numerous challenges to their healthy development. Families struggle to find adequate resources to meet their health and mental health needs, as well as provide quality education and childcare.
In her book, Jane, the Compton Foundation Centennial Professor for the Prevention of Children and Youth Problems at Columbia University School of Social Work, evaluates current child benefit policies and makes the case for the establishment of a child benefit in the United States. She’s also a visiting professor at the London School of Economics, where she played an integral role in helping Britain reduce child poverty by half.
Irv Garfinkel, the Mitchell I. Ginsberg Professor Emeritus of Contemporary Urban Problems at Columbia University School of Social Work and co-founding director of the Center on Poverty and Social Policy, used benefit-cost analysis to convert the federal Child Tax Credit into a child allowance by making it fully refundable and increasing benefits. He was instrumental in shaping child support policies and shifted to child allowances when recognizing that child support applied only to about half of children.
Michael Sherraden has focused on asset-building policies and is a strong advocate for child development accounts (CDAs), which he has helped establish in several states and countries, including Singapore, China, and Israel. He continues to pursue federal CDA legislation, similar to the Trump accounts that the Republicans recently passed, in their One Big, Beautiful Bill. There is significant interest in child savings accounts at the federal level based on the models adopted by states.
Jane Waldfogel sees reason for optimism as she found interest on both sides of the aisle for universal or near-universal child benefits. She believes there is a consensus in favor of providing more financial support to parents to help raise their children. We saw a glimpse of this during the recent reauthorization of Title IV-B of the Social Security Act, which primarily funds child welfare services. H.R. 9076, The Supporting America’s Children and Families Act, passed unanimously out of the Ways and Means Committee, passed the House on a 405 to 10 vote, and passed the Senate by unanimous consent.
Ultimately, the well-being of children cannot be secured solely through the reform of the child welfare system. The challenges facing America’s children are inextricably linked to the well-being of their families and communities. Therefore, the most effective federal strategy is one that looks beyond the narrow confines of child protection and invests robustly in the universal foundations of family stability: economic security, affordable health care, high-quality early education, and safe communities. The history of federal policy demonstrates that while the challenges are immense, so too is the potential for positive change when political will is aligned with evidence-based, equitable, and family-centered solutions.