Critical Policy Gaps in the Earned Income Tax Credit: A Lost Opportunity for Improving Equity and Reducing Youth Violence and Child Abuse and Neglect

About This Grant

Project Abstract/Summary: The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) plays a critical part in the social safety net by increasing financial security for low to moderate income working families, particularly the 5.4 million households headed by single female parents with low education. The EITC has been identified as a promising primary prevention strategy for preventing child injury and risk factors for youth violence. However, program design fails vulnerable first-time mothers. EITC payments are so limited for first-time mothers that researchers have used less educated, single first-time mothers as the “control” group to establish the positive impacts of the EITC. Our central hypothesis is that current EITC design contributes to higher child abuse and neglect and youth violence and exacerbates health inequities for groups already experiencing disproportionate burdens of violence. The EITC gap exists as women pregnant with their first child receive little to no EITC benefit until 2-14 months following birth despite strong evidence that stress, nutrition, and economic well-being during pregnancy and early infancy impact a lifetime of outcomes including experiences with violence. Our long-term goal is to support the health and well- being of families by equitably reducing experiences with violence. The overall objective of this application is to estimate how EITC policy design impacts outcomes for first children and how this contributes to the disproportionate burden of violence. We update the existing literature on EITC effects with a combination of data sources and causal design and provide the first estimates of the child abuse and neglect and youth violence improvements possible by closing the EITC gap for first-time mothers. Specific Aim 1: To quantify child abuse and neglect and youth violence effects that would be achieved by closing the EITC gap for first births. Specific Aim 2: To understand community member perspectives on risk factors for child abuse and neglect and youth violence including EITC eligibility. Specific Aim 3: To estimate a simulation model of the costs and benefits of closing the EITC coverage gaps for first-time mothers. 3.1: Assess the CAN and youth violence effects of closing the EITC gap at the federal level. 3.2: Separately estimate impacts of the EITC gap for people disproportionately impacted by violence based on disability status and race and ethnicity and assess the role of the EITC gap in perpetuating disproportionate burdens of violence.