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National Center for Children in Poverty Moves to Bank Street Graduate School of Education

Dear Friends and Colleagues, We are excited to share that the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) officially moved to Bank Street Graduate School of Education on July 1, 2019. Founded at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, NCCP has worked for 30 years to advance family-oriented research and translate findings into actionable recommendations that reduce the number of families experiencing hardship. Our work has informed policy changes in the area of early care and education, paid family leave, disability policy, immigration, early childhood mental health, and more. We are grateful to our partners at Columbia University for their longstanding support of the center’s work. Now, we look forward to working within the Bank Street Graduate School of Education as we continue our mission to put research into action to improve the lives and futures of low-income children and their families. For over a century, Bank Street has been a leader in early childhood education, teacher and leader preparation, and the development of innovative practices in schools and communities. With a shared commitment to achieving meaningful change in the policies that support equity for all children from birth to age 18, NCCP is eager to continue our work under the auspices of Bank Street. It is our hope that through continued partnerships with many local, state, and national organizations across the country, NCCP will help our leaders use research and data to forge policies that help children and their families thrive. Thank you for your support of our work. Your encouragement helps NCCP and our partners tackle the most challenging issues that plague our nation’s most vulnerable communities. Warmly, Heather Koball, Co-Director, [email protected] Sheila Smith, Co-Director, [email protected]

Workers Speak Out on Disability and Health: New Report on Paid Family Leave and the Disability Angle

Washington, DC – Today, The Arc of the United States (The Arc) and the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health are releasing Disability Perspectives on Paid Leave: A Qualitative Analysis of Leave-taking Among Workers Affected by Disabilities or Serious Health Conditions. This ground-breaking research examines how workers with disabilities and working caregivers of people with disabilities use, need, and benefit from paid family and medical leave. It is one of the only studies to specifically explore whether current paid and unpaid leave policies and programs for working individuals meet the needs of the disability community. Findings offer key insights on how existing leave policies can become more inclusive to this historically under-served group, and highlight the need for a comprehensive, national paid leave policy.

Researchers at NCCP conducted and analyzed in-depth interviews with 90 workers with disabilities and working caregivers in California, New Jersey, New York, and North Carolina. Major findings include:

Workers with disabilities and working caregivers take leave for diverse and often disability-specific reasons.

Workers want to maximize their time at work and benefit when they can use paid leave in conjunction with other employment benefits.

Workers highly value the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and state-administered paid leave options, which in this study included programs in California, New Jersey, and New York.

Multiple barriers and gaps limit workers’ access to leave, including fear of job loss and stigma against disabilities. In states with paid family and medical leave insurance, certain program features also limit access, including low awareness and understanding of the program, inadequate wage replacement, narrow or unclear covered reasons for leave, and inadequate coverage for self-employed and public workers.

Based on these findings, the paper provides recommendations for how policymakers, employers, and advocates can make it easier for all workers to take leave from work during a stressful period of their lives. Most importantly, the findings provide a road map for an inclusive national paid leave policy.

“Our goal with this paper is not only to inform, but also to expand the national dialogue to make paid leave policies and proposals stronger and more inclusive. As this study’s findings show, paid leave is extremely important for people with disabilities and their families, including people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. At The Arc, we believe that our nation can and should put in place an inclusive, comprehensive national paid leave policy that reflects the full range of workers’ leave needs, including people with disabilities and their families. We hope this paper provides the blueprint leaders need to advance this process,” said T.J. Sutcliffe, Senior Director, Income & Housing Policy, The Arc.

The need for paid family and medical leave is universal - nearly all of us will need paid leave at some point to care for a family member, address our own serious medical condition, or welcome a new child into our family. The disability perspective, however, has often been missing from the national conversations and research on paid leave, despite the fact that roughly 1 in 5 Americans has a disability. As such, there is a huge gap in understanding on how the disability community uses paid leave, the frequency of use of this benefit, and whether current federal and state policy frameworks and available paid leave programs meet the disability community’s needs.

“It is crucial to hear from working individuals directly affected by serious health conditions and disability to understand how paid leave policies can work better for them. Our in-depth conversations with workers revealed important patterns and policy considerations that deserve more discussion, such as the need for an inclusive definition of family and flexibility to take leave for myriad reasons. This study bolsters current survey research on disability and paid leave by contributing the lived experiences of working individuals,” said Dr. Heather Koball, Director of NCCP.

About the Study: This qualitative study aimed to (1) understand common usage patterns of unpaid and paid leave programs, (2) to assess the priorities of working caregivers and workers with disabilities regarding taking leave from work, and (3) pinpoint ways in which key stakeholders can better support this population of workers. The research team asked participants their reasons for taking leave and about their leave-taking patterns, as well as what factors influence their access to specific leave benefits.

The Arc advocates for and serves people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD), including Down syndrome, autism, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, cerebral palsy and other diagnoses. The Arc has a network of over 650 chapters across the country promoting and protecting the human rights of people with I/DD and actively supporting their full inclusion and participation in the community throughout their lifetimes and without regard to diagnosis.

Editor’s Note: The Arc is not an acronym; always refer to us as The Arc, not The ARC and never ARC. The Arc should be considered as a title or a phrase.

The National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) is a non-partisan public policy research center at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Founded in 1989 with endowments from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Ford Foundation, NCCP is dedicated to promoting the economic security, healthy development, and well-being of America’s low-income children and families. Using research to inform policy and practice, the center seeks to advance family-oriented solutions and strategic use of public resources at the state and national levels to produce positive outcomes for the next generation.

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#paidleave #disability #disabilties #caregivers #worksupport #inclusion #social policy

Spread the word about our focus group for New Jersey workers in Vineland, NJ on September 27!

Columbia University will hold discussion groups, or focus groups, in Vineland, NJ during the evening of Wednesday, September 27th to hear from people who work or have worked in New Jersey about how they balance work and family responsibilities. Each discussion group will last for about two hours and refreshments will be provided. Each participant who completes a session with our researchers will receive a $75 gift card.

We are looking for people who, in the past three years,

(1) were working in New Jersey, AND

(2) provided support for a seriously ill or injured family member/friend OR welcomed a newborn or a newly adopted child, AND

(3) earned less than the area median income (about $55,000-$90,000/year, depending on residence).

A trained facilitator will manage the discussion, which will be audio recorded. All group discussions and participants’ information will be kept confidential, or private. We will hold one group in English and one group in Spanish.

To find out if you are eligible, call or text 856-471-7019, send an email to [email protected] with ‘NJ Focus Group’ in the subject line or take our online survey at https://cumc.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3O5htcqpYlOeeot.

If interested participants qualify, they will be invited to attend the focus group.

Here are easy ways you can help us:

1) Share this post with anyone you know who might be interested in sharing their experiences.

2) Tell people about this study or hand out flyers - available here (PDF) and here (Word) - at events.

3) Reshare our posts on Twitter or Facebook about this study.

The study’s goal is to learn more about how paid and unpaid leave programs can be improved to meet the needs of lower-income workers managing multiple work and family responsibilities.

We will share our findings with child advocates, community-based organizations, state policymakers and administrators, and others interested in making the state leave programs as effective as possible.

This research project of Columbia University is sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and led by the National Partnership for Women & Families. Questions or concerns? Contact Suma Setty at 212-304-6093 or [email protected].

Can You Help Us Recruit Workers With Disabilities for a Paid Research Study?

Researchers from Columbia University and The Arc of the United States are interested in speaking to workers with disabilities and those who provide support to a friend or family member with a disability in California, New Jersey, New York, and North Carolina.

We are looking for people who:

Work in California, New Jersey, New York, or North Carolina AND

Have a disability OR provide support to a friend or a family member with a disability

As part of this project, we will interview people one-on-one either over the phone or by video conference to hear about their experiences needing leave from work for reasons related to their own disability or that of a family member or friend. During these interviews, participants will be asked about their

Experiences balancing work responsibilities and medical needs

Experiences balancing work and family responsibilities

Opinions on paid family and medical leave programs

Experiences with paid leave programs if they did use it

Opinions on how the program(s) could be improved

If you know someone interested in participating, please tell them to take our online eligibility survey (also available here: https://cumc.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bKoreYdj5F1VfeJ), call or text 929-900-5398, or send an email to [email protected] with ‘The Arc’ in the subject line.

Paid family and medical leave programs give workers paid time off from work to recover from an illness or injury, to bond with a new child, or care for a seriously ill or injured family member. Our goal is to hear from workers with disabilities and workers who have supported a friend or family member with a disability about how paid family and medical leave programs could work better for them.

Here are four easy ways you can help us:

1) Share this blog post with anyone you know who might be interested in talking about their experiences.

2) Share our sample posts on social media.

On Twitter:

. @NCCP & @TheArcUS are doing a study on #PaidLeave and want to hear from workers with #disabilities in CA, NJ, NY, or NC. Visit the link for more information on how you can receive a gift card for participating: https://www.thearc.org/paidleavestudy

. @NCCP & @TheArcUS are doing a study on #PaidLeave and want to hear from workers caring for ppl with #disabilities in CA, NJ, NY, or NC. Visit the link for more information on how you can receive a gift card for participating: https://thearc.org/paidleavestudy

On Facebook:

The Arc and NCCP are doing a study on paid leave and want to hear from workers with disabilities in California, New Jersey, New York, or North Carolina. Visit https://thearc.org/paidleavestudy for more information on how you can receive $20 for participating. [Click to Post!]

The Arc and NCCP are doing a study on paid leave and want to hear from workers who care for family members with disabilities in California, New Jersey, New York, or North Carolina. Visit https://thearc.org/paidleavestudy for more information on how you can receive $20 for participating. [Click to Post!]

3) Tell people about this study or hand out flyers at events.

Outreach Flyer #1: Word | PDF

Outreach Flyer #2: Word | PDF

4) Add a link to the study site on your website: http://www.thearc.org/paidleavestudy.

Interviews will be conducted by a member of our research team and last about 40 minutes to an hour. All discussions and participants’ information will be kept confidential, and participants will be asked to consent to audio recording. Participants who are eligible and complete an interview will receive a $20 gift card via email.

We will share our findings with advocates, community-based organizations, state policymakers, and others interested in making paid medical and family leave programs as inclusive as possible.

This research project of Columbia University is sponsored by The Arc of the United States. Questions or concerns? Contact Suma Setty at 212-304-6093 or [email protected].

#disability #invisible disability #chronic disease #disabilties #disability rights

Hey how recent is the data on the page that says this: "About 15 million children in the United States – 21% of all children – live in families with incomes below the federal poverty ..." ? What year is the 21% from? 2014? or this year? Also, if someone knows where that information came from I would love to know! (I'm writing an essay on childhood poverty and how it affects a child's mental health and education, as well as their adult life) Thanks so much and I hope to hear back from you soon :)

Hello! Thanks for your email. The most recent data from our center is available on our website at http://nccp.org/publications/pub_1194.html.

A Farewell Message from NCCP Director Renée Wilson-Simmons

Dear Colleagues,

For nearly 30 years, the National Center for Children in Poverty has been a leading voice in addressing the needs of economically vulnerable families through the promotion of sound, research-driven policies and programs. NCCP has been conducting research and translating the findings into actionable recommendations that advocates and policymakers use to improve the lives and futures of low-income children and their families. And since I joined the center in October 2012 as its director, it has been my pleasure — and my responsibility — to continue leading the organization toward realizing its vision of an America where all families are economically secure, strong, and nurturing, and all children are supported so they thrive and grow into healthy adults.

And now, after 5+ very fulfilling years here as NCCP’s director, I will be leaving the center on March 30 to take on a new challenge and opportunity as executive director of the ACE Awareness Foundation in Memphis, Tennessee. At a time when there is increased awareness of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and the types of negative, lasting effects they have on health and well-being, it will be exciting to lead the foundation’s effort to educate Greater Memphis about ACEs, support families in their efforts to prevent and mitigate ACEs, and gain local and state systems support for ACE prevention efforts.

Working with NCCP’s talented staff and committed partners has been a joy, as has seeing the ways in which the center has been a catalyst for change—deepening understanding of poverty, stimulating advocacy efforts, and driving policy change. NCCP will be in very good hands with Heather Koball, PhD, director of family economic security, serving as interim director.

As research continues to shed light on the impact of ACEs, I will be working to drive public and policy discourse toward efforts that support parents and their children. And as this work takes shape, I hope that we can continue to work together to spread the message that children do better when families do better. I look forward to it.

Best,

Renée Wilson-Simmons, DrPH

A National Paid Family Leave Program is Critical to Reducing Child Poverty, NCCP Experts Explain in New CPAG Publication

Since it was enacted in 1993, the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) has allowed 50 million workers time off to recover from a serious health condition, care for a family member, or adjust to new parenthood. But despite its successes, the FMLA is far from perfect. With no guaranteed pay provision and eligibility requirements that block 40 percent of workers from participating, the FMLA has not done enough to reduce disparities between low- and high-income families’ ability to take leave.

But in a new policy brief released this week, NCCP authors explained that it is possible to craft a national paid leave policy that reaches the majority of workers, minimizes employer burden, and supports the healthy development of low-income children. In Supporting America’s Low-Income Working Families through Universal Paid Family Leave, NCCP policy experts outlined three policy strategies for creating a national paid leave policy, and explained why one option presents the best framework for an effective federal universal social insurance program. The brief was published in Our Kids, Our Future, a compendium of cross-sector solutions to significantly reduce child poverty developed by members of the U.S. Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG).

CPAG is a partnership of child-focused organizations dedicated to cutting child poverty in half within a decade. Recognizing the need for a national strategy to address child poverty, CPAG members drafted Our Kids, Our Future and released it on April 12 at a Congressional briefing featuring a panel of experts presenting on child-focused interventions to address child poverty and support healthy child development. At the briefing, members detailed how solutions to child poverty are tied to economic gains that result in a strong and educated workforce, which benefit businesses, communities, and not least of all, children and families.

Our Kids, Our Future is available now on the CPAG website. For more about why paid family leave is crucial to alleviating child poverty, visit NCCP.org.

NCCP creates new resource website on paid and unpaid leave in New Jersey with The Baby Box Company and The Center for Women and Work at Rutgers

Figure 1: Screenshot of resource webpage at nccp.org/njfamilyleave

Expecting and new parents in New Jersey have two new digital resources to inform their decisions about taking leave from work. The National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP), in collaboration with The Baby Box Company and the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University, recently launched an informational website on paid and unpaid leave in New Jersey. Accessible via http://www.nccp.org/njfamilyleave, the website accompanies new informational videos about New Jersey’s paid and unpaid leave options produced by Baby Box University, The Baby Box Company’s free educational platform. The videos are available to anyone in New Jersey who registers on Baby Box University.

Figure 2: Screenshot of Baby Box University educational portal

“While we regularly share our research findings with policymakers and advocates, we want our knowledge about public programs to be useful to families with children as well,” says NCCP Director Renée Wilson-Simmons.

The videos, which feature an expert on New Jersey leave programs, describe eligibility requirements and the application process for Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI) and Family Leave Insurance (FLI), both of which provide partial wage replacement during leaves from work. Also described in the videos are two unpaid leave protections: the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the New Jersey Family Leave Act (NJ FLA). Both protect eligible workers from losing their job while on leave. The website provides links to the online applications and other resources from A Better Balance, the New Jersey Labor and Workforce Development Department, and the New Jersey Time to Care Coalition.

Findings from NCCP’s 2015 qualitative study of New Jersey’s Family Leave Insurance program was the catalyst for creation of the website and videos. Thus far, California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island have enacted paid family leave programs for workers, and Washington state, New York, and Washington, D.C., will do so soon. In New Jersey, however, the state’s Family Leave Insurance program is underutilized when compared with other state programs. The study, building on previous research which showed low awareness of the program among less-advantaged New Jersey voters, found high levels of confusion regarding availability of, eligibility for, and interaction between state and federal leave programs and protections. In addition, study participants identified health care providers as trusted sources of information. Recognizing widespread trust in health professionals, Baby Box Company is partnering with hospitals to distribute as many boxes as the estimated number of babies to be born in New Jersey in 2017. These digital resources have the potential to be a far-reaching and inclusive way to educate all new parents in the state about their leave options at the exact moment they are likely to be eligible for them.

Baby boxes provide physical and educational resources

Inspired by the Finnish government’s long-standing maternity packages initiative, The Baby Box Company partnered with the New Jersey Department of Children and Families earlier this year to distribute approximately 105,000 baby boxes to expecting parents across the state. The box itself is meant to serve as the baby’s first bed until the baby can pull itself up; it also contains diapers, baby clothes, and other items. The program is credited with contributing to the decline in Finland’s infant mortality rates by reducing sleep-related deaths, supporting the hope that baby boxes in New Jersey will decrease Sudden Unexplained Infant Deaths (SUIDs) related to sleep environments, which accounted for 93 percent of all SUIDs in 2014. The goal is to provide universal access to both educational and physical resources for New Jersey parents to reduce sleep environment-related infant deaths and improve overall infant and maternal health.

Figure 3: Baby boxes are meant to serve as a child's first bed and come with other resources.

One of the main appeals of the baby box model lies in its educational potential. In order to receive a box, expecting parents in New Jersey must complete the New Jersey syllabus via an online educational portal called Baby Box University. Completing the syllabus requires creating an account (for free), watching a set of videos, and answering a short quiz related to the video content. Once completed, parents can pick up a baby box at a local hospital or have one shipped to their home. The required syllabus in New Jersey was developed in consultation with leading physicians and health experts. In addition, parents have access to a digital library of health education materials, including videos, articles, “ask an expert” interactive features, quizzes, and e-books on a range of issues related to newborn care (e.g., safe sleep, local family services, breastfeeding). The reach and structure of Baby Box University present a unique opportunity to inform a large proportion of expecting and new parents in New Jersey about their leave-taking rights and benefits. By translating complex policy information into understandable terms via a free online platform, this low-cost initiative aims to make essential benefit information accessible, providing it to people when they need it the most.

Paid family leave benefits infant and maternal health

The belief that working people should be provided paid leave from work to bond with a new child or care for a seriously ill family member is gaining traction in the United States, marked by the recent uptick in the adoption of paid family leave policies at the state, municipal, and corporate levels. A nationwide poll conducted in November 2016 showed that 78 percent of the population favors establishing a national paid family and medical leave program, and policymakers on both sides of the aisle have acknowledged its importance to infant and maternal health. Leave to care for a newborn has been associated with improvements in child cognitive outcomes and infant health, increases in breastfeeding, higher likelihood of infant immunization and well-baby visits, and decreases in maternal depression. Research suggests that state and federal policies have increased the likelihood of leave-taking as well as the length of leave taken by parents with infants. People cannot benefit, however, if they do not know about leave programs. This collaboration is designed to change that.

The Missed Opportunity of Tax Reform

It’s not yet tax season for American families, but an important debate in Congress is bringing the question of who pays taxes — and how much they should fairly pay — front and center. Earlier this month, members of the House passed The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, legislation aimed at reforming both individual and business taxes. Senate members are considering a similar plan, and could bring the issue to a vote in short order.

Federal income tax policy offers an array of powerful tools that can help lift low-income families out of poverty, but changes to the tax code can also lead to increases in inequality and the tax burden of low- and middle-income families. So, it’s important that any attempt at reform put America’s low- and middle-income families in a better economic position, not a worse one. And on this point, the principles for reform at the center of the current debate are causing those of us who study poverty-related issues to harbor serious concerns.

Right now, poverty in America is moving in the right direction: down. According to the latest Census figures, poverty is finally at pre-recession levels, having declined from 13.5 percent in 2015 to 12.7 percent in 2016 —a reduction of 2.5 million people. And household earnings have gone up: The median household income increased 3.2 percent to $59,000 — the highest ever recorded by the Census.

But the gains we’ve made on addressing poverty haven’t happened by accident. They’ve come after decades of identifying and lifting up policies designed to better support low-income and financially fragile families. The programs and policies that insulate families from the ill-effects of poverty — from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Children’s Health Insurance Program to refundable tax credits and housing subsidies — not only serve to stabilize family budgets, they support local economies and businesses. Economic policy that focuses on helping low- and middle-income families has a bubble-up effect that benefits everyone.

Sadly, the principles at the heart of the proposals currently under consideration in Congress seem destined to do the opposite. Analysis of the House proposal by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the Tax Policy Center warned that the federal deficit would balloon by $1.7 trillion within a decade. With most tax cuts going to wealthy households and corporations, we risk compounding the growing unequal distribution of wealth and income. That’s a particularly dangerous combination for poor families because some members of Congress are already promising to target entitlement programs in order to balance the budget after the tax cuts go into effect. This means cuts to programs like Medicaid even though seventy percent of Medicaid dollars are spent on the elderly, children, and people with disabilities, the most vulnerable members of our society.

A CBO analysis released this week of the policies under debate in the Senate offered a similarly grim picture. The office estimated that families earning below $30,000 a year would be among the first to see their taxes increase, and that most families earning under $75,000 would be hit with tax increases by 2027. What’s more, reform plans in that chamber include several policies that miss important opportunities to help the nation’s most vulnerable households or would likely have a net negative effect on their prospects. Some examples:

Repealing the Affordable Care Act mandate to purchase health insurance will likely make health care more expensive or unavailable for low- and middle-class households. The guarantee that young, healthy people will participate in the individual market helps insurers to offset the cost of covering more at-risk customers. According to the CBO, repealing the individual mandate would lead to 13 million Americans losing insurance coverage — and higher premiums for those who remain.

While the House bill includes an expansion of the Child Tax Credit, that tax credit will only help higher-income families. It retains its limited refundability, offering no benefits to low-income families. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities warns this approach could exclude as many as 10 million children — a staggering 1 in 7 —whose parents work for low pay.

Offering a tax break to businesses that offer as little as two weeks of paid family leave to workers is inadequate. After decades of empirical evidence that paid family leave is a win for employers and workers — including our report on the impact of New Jersey’s family leave insurance program— it’s encouraging to see the issue is taking hold at the federal level. But we know that not all leave policies are created equal. And, as we heard from parents in NJ, a leave policy that offers no real benefit to parents — without enough time to care for their children or family members, adequate income replacement, or administrative support —can be as ineffective as not having a leave policy in place at all.

Children do well when families do well — and research has proven that when working families do well, their gains can lift up entire communities. But rather than building on the progress we’ve made in helping working poor families to become more stable, the current tax reform proposals under debate in Congress would place families in an even worse economic position than they are today. More than that, these proposals would place critical programs that support working families in the crosshairs for future cuts.

Food Insecurity and the Burden of Back to School

A new school year is underway, but for millions of children from poor families, the best reason to celebrate going back to school has nothing to do with their new classroom.

In some school cafeterias across the country, students will be greeted with a healthy, free breakfast — whether their families can afford to pay or not. And hours later, those same students will get a nutritious lunch without shame, and without the stigma of unpaid debt.

Normalizing the accessibility of meals for all students, regardless of family income, is emerging as a low-burden, low-cost strategy for schools to help kids succeed in class. So why have so few communities taken it up? It has to do with how we think about personal responsibility, and the cruel way that we judge families who live in poverty.

Through the federal Community Eligibility Provision, school districts can offer free meals to all students as long as 40 percent of its student body are identified as eligible for free or reduced lunch. Rather than collecting and managing individual applications from families, CEP allows administrators to use the number of families enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid, and other federal assistance programs as a way to sign up the entire school or district. Without all that paperwork to manage, schools can make sure that every student — regardless of their family’s income —gets at least two healthy meals each day. As a result, a record number of poor children are reaping the benefits: A Food Research and Action Center study found that the number of poor children who eat breakfast is up 50 percent over the last ten years to more than 10 million in the 2015-2016 school year.

Just days ago, New York’s public school system — with its 1.1 million students — announced participation in the program. Cities including Boston, Chicago, and Detroit have already begun feeding all kids as a way to reach those most in need. And while that’s good news, far too many schools have taken a different approach.

According to federal data, some 76 percent of school districts report unpaid lunch debt. And nearly half of school districts engage in public humiliation of children to shame their parents into paying. The shaming ranges from serving students low-quality sandwiches instead of hot meals to sending them home with a debt reminder in the form of a hand stamp. In some communities, when parents don’t (or can’t) pay, school districts use debt collectors to go after overdue lunch fees, a move that can have significant ripple effects on a family’s finances —jeopardizing job prospects, housing opportunities, and more. What’s worse, few of those families are counseled about nutrition assistance or other programs for which they might qualify.

Why are we punishing these families? It could be that administrators unfairly employ a different standard — one that is less forgiving and far more judgmental — when making decisions about poor families.

Time and again, poor families are judged more harshly for almost every choice they make. From how they parent their children to the very contents of their shopping carts, poor families are held to superhuman standards and a humiliating amount of scrutiny by people who've never had to face those decisions or face the consequences.

Sadly, those same judgments can make it far more difficult for school administrators to comprehend the choices that families face. While New York, Boston, and other cities should be held up as examples of why feeding all kids is critical to school success, too many other districts assume the worst of parents — and harm children as a result. When policy is driven by harsh assumptions about poor families’ lives and the trade-offs they make in order to cover their basic needs, children suffer. Their chances of graduating from high school, prepared to succeed in life are sorely challenged.

Hunger is among the most crippling challenges that poor families face. It shortens children’s attention spans, impedes their physical development, and threatens their chances of academic success. And for too many children, heading back to school doesn’t mean any relief from the gnawing pain of food insecurity. That’s finally changing, but not quickly enough.

Latest Census Figures on Child Poverty Merit a “Thumbs Up,” But There’s More to Come

There seems to be far more bad news than good surrounding us these days. And so, the U.S. Census Bureau’s release this week of 2016 data on poverty, income, and health insurance released this week, contains some good news that’s worth spreading. While the numbers don’t warrant a big celebration, they certainly call for a “thumbs-up.” Poverty is at pre-recession levels, having declined from 13.5 percent in 2015 to 12.7 percent in 2016 —a reduction of 2.5 million people. And household earnings have gone up: The median household income increased 3.2 percent to $59,000 — the highest ever recorded by the Census. Finally, the percentage of people without health insurance coverage for the entire calendar year declined slightly to 8.8 percent and 28.1 million. Definitely thumbs-up findings.

The next step is taking a deep dive into the numbers and what they truly mean. The National Center for Children in Poverty is among the many organizations that have already begun that process. Because we conduct actionable research to improve the lives and futures of poor children and their families, our focus is on those at the bottom of the economic ladder. So, here are some of the questions we’ll be looking into:

We know that in 2016 there were 48.3 million women working full time, year-round, but how many of them were mothers with young children, and what were their annual earnings?

We know that children under 18 years old are the poorest residents of our nation—18 percent are living in poverty—but by using the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), which extends the official poverty measure by taking into account many of the government programs designed to assist low-income families, we can see that the child poverty rate fell by 1.1 percentage points from 2015, down to 15.1 percent. That’s a statistically significant decline. And it should come as no surprise that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) prevented 3.6 million people from living in poverty in 2016. But how can we keep those figures moving in the right direction?

Please stay tuned. There may be more good news on the way, and more reasons to support the social safety net programs that are essential to supporting the healthy growth and development of our nation’s children.

How Changing State Immigration Enforcement Policies Can Put U.S. Children At Risk

More than 1 in 10 children in the U.S. live with at least one parent who isn’t a citizen. And while the majority of those children (80 percent) are citizens themselves, many of them are living in fear and uncertainty right now. With the White House signaling a harsher policy environment for immigrant families than in recent years, including plans to increase efforts to identify and deport unauthorized immigrants, close to 5 million U.S. citizen children have a parent who is now potentially subject to deportation.

Research has shown that the deportation of a parent has a crushing, destabilizing effect on the family, causing emotional distress, behavioral issues, and economic hardship for children. We also know that even the threat of deportation can shatter a family’s well-being by causing fear that restricts mobility and access to jobs, and deters the use of public and private supports in times of need.

As more states and local jurisdictions increase cooperation with federal immigration enforcement efforts, millions of children in low-income immigrant households will almost certainly feel the impact.

In State Immigration Enforcement Policies: How They Impact Low-Income Households, researchers at NCCP, Urban Institute, and Migration Policy Institute looked at how the changing immigration policy environment is likely to affect immigrant families. Specifically, we sought to determine whether immigrant families living in states that ramped up enforcement of federal policy saw any changes in their material hardship, or how often fear of deportation affected their ability to pay for essentials (such as rent, utilities, or food).

Our research uncovered a distressing connection between immigration policy enforcement and well-being in immigrant households — whether the parents in the household were legal

Differences in policy choices have a real impact on children of legal and unauthorized immigrants.

This new report shows that when states increase cooperation in federal immigration enforcement efforts, it brings increases in material hardship for low-income immigrant households with children, both those headed by unauthorized immigrants and those headed by legal immigrants.

Simply put, harsher immigration policies pushed families that were already vulnerable into serious distress. For these families, that meant more children and parents under stress, sometimes going without basic necessities like electricity or heat, missing rent payments and facing eviction, or going without needed medical care.

In states where federal immigration enforcement policies are implemented more harshly, both legal and unauthorized immigrants were more likely to experience any or all of the following circumstances:

Housing instability, such as trouble making rent or mortgage payments, having to live in overcrowded housing, or getting evicted

Trouble paying monthly bills for lights, heat, and phone service – or having those basic utilities shut off entirely

Medical hardship where at least one member of the household was unable to visit a doctor or dentist when needed

Not having reliable access to enough food to stave off hunger

When families have trouble meeting basic needs, children are more likely to experience long-term challenges to their social development, emotional health, and overall well-being. Further, the report findings suggest that these policies may generate a climate of fear that affects the economic opportunities of legal immigrants as well. That includes 5.9 million children living with parents who are non-citizens, but are themselves U.S. citizens.

The implication is clear: If states and localities wish to follow the lead of the Trump Administration and increase their participation in enforcement of federal immigration law, they may do so at the cost of increasing material hardship among unauthorized and legal immigrant households alike — with no actual gain for households with U.S. citizens.

For more information on trends in state immigration enforcement policies, please read the full report here, or contact NCCP director of financial security Heather Koball at [email protected]. We also encourage you to visit the interactive “State Immigration Policy Resource”, developed by the authors of State Immigration Enforcement Policies: How They Impact Low-Income Households. Developed with the support of the Russell Sage Foundation, this online tool allows users to explore immigration enforcement policies in more depth, by state and year.

Early Care and Education Can Help Young Children Overcome Trauma

Trauma can take many forms in children’s lives — such as experiencing abuse or neglect, losing or being separated from a parent, having a serious injury or illness, or feeling high levels of stress and anxiety associated with living in poverty. Young children are especially vulnerable to harm, as the first years of life are when the brain is rapidly developing cognitive and social-emotional skills, learning, the ability to form healthy attachments to others, and physical health.

A new report by Child Trends and the National Center for Children in Poverty, Helping Young Children Who Have Experienced Trauma: Policies and Strategies for Early Care and Education, makes important recommendations to policymakers and early care and education (ECE) professionals, both of whom can promote trauma-informed care.

Policymakers can:

Increase early childhood professionals’ capacity to recognize and respond to trauma

Expand initiatives that help ECE programs connect families with community services

Provide children with access to high-quality, stable ECE and strong early learning supports

Early childhood professionals can:

Train all adults to recognize and respond to the impact of trauma on young children

Incorporate strategies for addressing trauma and its effects into program practices and policies

Build partnerships that facilitate screening and services for children and their families

Promote collaborations among families, staff, and mental health professionals to support children’s development

Given that every week nearly 11 million children under age 5 attend some form of early care and education, these programs are useful venues for intervention. Yet few are equipped to meet the complex needs of children who have been exposed to trauma.

In March, the Trauma-Informed Care for Children and Families Act of 2017 was introduced to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The Act would create a federal inter-agency task force to support identification of and services for children who have experienced trauma. The proposed legislation contains supports for providing trauma-informed care in early care and education settings (such as child care and preschool). Trauma-informed care requires all individuals who care for young children to be able to recognize and respond to the impact of traumatic stress in a coordinated way.

The Act proposes to identify best practices for providing trauma-informed care, and train child care administrators and providers in using them.

Trauma undermines children’s ability to feel safe and secure. It can take a long-lasting toll on children, their families, and the service systems with which they engage — even a child’s ability to function later in life. If we improve ECE programs’ ability to respond to children’s trauma early on, we can mitigate its impact on millions.

Authors: Jessica Dym Bartlett, MSW, PhD (Senior Research Scientist, Child Trends); Elizabeth Bringewatt, MSW, PhD (Research Scientist, Child Trends); Sheila Smith (Director, Early Childhood, National Center for Children in Poverty)

We would like to thank the Alliance for Early Success and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation for their support of this work.

New NCCP Report Lifts Up Positive Protective Factors that Help Children in Low-Income Families Flourish Despite Adversity

Decades of research on the impact of child poverty have corroborated what millions of poor families already know: Growing up poor is hazardous to a child’s chances of success.

From unequal access to safe, decent neighborhoods, affordable housing, and well-resourced schools to barriers in employment and educational enrichment, poverty has a deeply negative impact on opportunity. And that holds true when it comes to family relationships, too. The day-to-day stress of struggling to meet a family’s most basic needs can test the parent-child dynamic, jeopardizing positive interactions and decreasing the odds of developing strong connections. The stress, which can make parents feel anxious, overwhelmed, and depressed, can also produce inconsistent or harsh parenting that falls far short of meeting children’s emotional needs and leads to negative child behaviors ranging from inattention, withdrawal, and fearfulness to impulsivity and aggression.

Still, despite the barriers to healthy development that poor children face, many of them have resilient parents who help them not just survive, but thrive.

That is the major finding from our newest report, Strong at the Broken Places: The Resiliency of Low-Income Parents. Using data from more than 2,200 low-income families surveyed as part of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we explored the positive family characteristics associated with resilience—the ability to thrive despite adversity. And the good news is that there is a formula for success: Practicing a parenting style that provides children with warmth and nurturance as well as rules and consequences, which helps them develop both socially and emotionally in ways that will serve them well as they move from childhood to adolescence to young adulthood.

Specifically, our research found that school-age children who reported high levels of parent involvement and supervision were more likely to report behaviors associated with positive emotional development and social growth.

And in even more good news, most of the nine-year-olds surveyed rated their caregiver high on all of the factors we used to measure resiliency in low-income families.

Clearly, parents who struggle financially are still finding ways to have the kinds of positive relationships and interactions with their children that help them develop socially and emotionally, despite the many external stressors competing for attention. And since we know that children do better when their families do better, it’s important that advocates and policymakers bolster families’ efforts to raise children that succeed by supporting not only those policies and programs that help parents develop strong connections with their children but also two-generation approaches that focus on enhancing the well-being and life opportunities of the whole family. Such efforts can help stabilize low-income households so that parents are better able to engage with their children.

Of course, none of the report’s recommendations should minimize the negative influence of external factors that families simply can’t move out of their lives. For instance, a poorly performing school or a crumbling, dangerous neighborhood threatens the most positive, nurturing messages that a diligent parent has to offer. But it’s encouraging to learn that the survival techniques employed by resilient parents are providing their children with much-needed buffers against the potential impacts of poverty.

Helping Young Children and Parents Access Mental Health through Medicaid

An increasing number of states are investing in the well-being and success of young children by expanding mental health services in pediatric, home, and community settings, according to a recently updated NCCP report. Using Medicaid to Help Young Children and Parents Access Mental Health Services examines states’ use of Medicaid as a key source of funding for early childhood mental health (ECMH) services. It presents the results of a 50-state survey that gathered information from state administrators about Medicaid coverage of a number of services for children from birth to age 6, including:

Child screening for social-emotional problems

Maternal depression screening in pediatric and family medicine settings

Mental health services in a pediatric or family medicine setting

Mental health services in child care and early education settings

Mental health services in the home setting

Dyadic (parent-child) treatment

Parenting programs to address child mental health needs; and

Case management/care coordination.

Now including enhanced U.S. maps, Using Medicaid to Help Young Children and Parents Access Mental Health Services provides information about key early childhood mental health services states are covering with Medicaid, including dyadic treatment; mental health services for children in home visits; parenting programs; and ECMH services in pediatric settings. The report also offers information about requirements concerning the use of evidence-based models and other features of coverage.

Even as some states have recently expanded Medicaid coverage for key mental health services that benefit young children, current federal proposals for repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act pose a grave threat to these services. As NCCP’s colleagues Elisabeth Wright Burak at the Georgetown Institute Health Policy Institute Center for Children and Families and Stephanie Schmit at CLASP explain in Top Five Ways ACA Repeal and Medicaid Financing Changes Would Harm our Youngest Children, these proposals would leave many low-income families without any health care coverage, and reduce the important health benefits currently provided under Medicaid to children.

Some effective strategies for improving mental health policies for young children include:

Learn about the child and parent mental health services that Medicaid covers in your state

Work to ensure strong implementation of existing coverage

Advocate for coverage of key services that could be covered, but currently are not (such as parenting programs that address mental health problems and services for children who are “at-risk” but lack a diagnosis)

Speak up to ensure that services related to young children’s mental health and parent depression are among the essential services that must be preserved in federal and state health care policies.

For technical assistance or questions related to these issues and the report, please reach out to NCCP Early Childhood Director Sheila Smith at [email protected].

AUDIO: NCCP Announces New Data on the Demographics of Child Poverty

Hundreds of new leaders have taken the helm at federal and state agencies responsible for implementing policies that touch the lives of poor children. It is imperative that they do so with a real understanding of the disadvantages millions of Americans face from very young ages and what growing up poor looks like in America. That’s the message NCCP researchers delivered in a recent media teleconference when the center released its annual reports on the demographics of child poverty in its series entitled Basic Facts about Low-Income Children. Dr. Heather Koball, director of Family Economic Security programs at NCCP, discussed key findings, drawn from the most current statistics available, which reveal exactly how severe child poverty remains in the U.S.:

In 2015, while 30 percent of adults had low incomes, more than 40 percent of all children lived in low-income families — including 5.2 million infants and toddlers under 3 years.

Despite significant gains in household income and reductions in the overall poverty rate in recent years, 43 percent (30.6 million) of America’s children are living in families barely able to afford their most basic needs.

The number of children in low-income families increased slightly — from 42 percent in 2009 to 43 percent in 2015 — and the percentage of poor children in the U.S. increased by 1 percentage point.

“The number of children experiencing poverty is still stubbornly high,” Koball said. “We have nearly 300,000 more children living near poverty today than at the height of the Great Recession.” She added that, with children in the United States having an almost one in two chance of living in a financially disadvantaged household, the effects of poverty continue to pose a real threat to millions of children, affecting their health and mental health, social interactions, and earnings potential as they grow to adulthood.

The full recording of the media teleconference is now available on the center’s website. Download the 2017 Basic Facts About Low-Income Children here.

America’s Youngest Children Most Likely to Live in Poor Economic Conditions, According to NCCP Report on Poverty Demographics

National Center for Children in Poverty’s Reports, Basic Facts about Low-Income Children, Include an Important Message to New Officials on Severity of Economic Instability and Disparity in the U.S.

NEW YORK CITY — Out of all age groups, children are still most likely to live in poverty, according to new research from the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Using the latest available data from the American Community Survey, NCCP researchers found that in 2015, while 30 percent of adults have low incomes, more than 40 percent of all children live in low-income families — including 5.2 million infants and toddlers under 3. Despite significant gains in household income and reductions in the overall poverty rate in recent years, 43 percent (30.6 million) of America’s children are living in families barely able to afford their most basic needs, according to Basic Facts about Low-Income Children, the center’s annual series of profiles on child poverty in America.

“While food assistance, public health insurance, and other programs have certainly had a mitigating effect on poverty for many families, the fact remains that in the United States young children have close to a one in two chance of living on the brink of poverty,” said Renée Wilson-Simmons, DrPH, NCCP director. “But being a child in a low-income or poor family doesn’t happen by chance, and neither should our approach to alleviating child poverty. In the coming weeks, hundreds of new leaders will take the helm at agencies responsible for implementing policies that touch the lives of poor children and affect their odds of success in life. It’s imperative that they do so with a real understanding of the disadvantages millions of Americans face from very young ages and what growing up poor looks like in America.”

Available online at www.nccp.org/publications/fact_sheets.html, the Basic Facts About Low-Income Children fact sheets illustrate the severity of economic instability faced by low-income and poor children throughout the United States. NCCP defines a poor household as one where incomes are below the federal poverty threshold (i.e., $24,036 for a family of four with two children in 2015). Families with earnings less than twice the poverty threshold are considered low income and include poor families (i.e., $48,072 for a family of four with two children in 2015). According to NCCP researchers, the number of children in low-income families increased slightly from 42 percent in 2009 to 43 percent in 2015, and the percent of poor children in the U.S. increased by 1 percentage point.

“The fact that we have nearly 300,000 more children living near poverty today than at the height of the Great Recession is concerning,” added NCCP director of Family Economic Security Heather Koball. “The anxiety, depression, and constant stress of being financially vulnerable leaves a lasting mark on children as they grow to adulthood, affecting earnings potential and health outcomes. These figures illustrate why it’s essential for advocates and policymakers to understand the long-term impact of child poverty and the factors — like parental education and race/ethnicity — that appear to distinguish low-income and poor children from their more economically advantaged peers.”

These are some of the findings in the 2017 edition of Basic Facts about Low-Income Children:

Children have been largely left out of economic gains in the U. S. since the Great Recession. Although one million fewer children lived in poverty in 2015 than the prior year, the percentage of children on the economic brink remains stubbornly high: 43 percent of children under age 18 (30.6 million) lived in low-income households and 21 percent lived in poor families (14.8 million). By comparison, at the height of the Great Recession in 2009, 42 percent (30.4 million) of children were considered low income and 20 percent (14.5 million) lived in poor households.

Disparities in child poverty persist along racial lines. Children of color accounted for approximately 49 percent of all young people in 2015, but were overrepresented among those living in poor and low-income families. More than 60 percent of black, Hispanic, and Native American kids live in low-income families, compared to 30 percent of Asian and white children — a dynamic largely unchanged in recent years.

The majority of children in low-income families have at least one parent who works full time, all year long. Children whose parents are employed full time are less likely to live below the poverty line, but earning a wage was no guarantee of economic security in 2015, according to NCCP research. More than half (53 percent) of low-income children and 31 percent of poor children live with at least one parent employed full time, throughout the year.

Published annually since 2009, Basic Facts about Low-Income Children presents demographic characteristics and socioeconomic conditions of poor and low-income children in fact sheets for five age groups, from infants and toddlers to adolescents. Fact sheet data are widely cited by policymakers, researchers, advocates, and the media. NCCP’s annual fact sheets on child poverty in the United States are available online at www.nccp.org/publications/fact_sheets.html.

To speak with an NCCP expert about the poverty profiles, contact Tiffany Thomas Smith, communications/media relations consultant for the National Center for Children in Poverty, at 443-986-5621 / [email protected], or Yang Jiang, NCCP demographer, at 646-284-9637 / [email protected].

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Part of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) is the nation’s leading public policy center dedicated to promoting the economic security, health, and well-being of America’s low-income families and children. Visit NCCP online at www.nccp.org. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter via @NCCP.

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