Although the current child tax credit helps many American families, families in which parents are unemployed don’t realize this benefit. Luke Shaefer and his colleagues are proposing a different approach: getting rid of the tax credit and instead providing $250 every month ($3,000/year) for every child in America. This child allowance – like Social Security – would guarantee a minimum level of well-being while cutting child poverty by over 40 percent, the researchers say. Given current bipartisan support for reducing U.S. poverty, Shaefer says: “We might be coming into a moment where there could be some common-sense policy changes. There is a policy window that wasn’t open a year or two years ago.” A paper on this proposed policy will be published by Russell Sage.

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