The Effects of Child Poverty Reductions on Child Protective Services Involvement

Abstract

In this study, we use microsimulation methods to estimate the reduction in child protective services (CPS) involvement resulting from implementation of three of the policy packages from a recent National Academy of Sciences proposal to reduce child poverty, including the introduction of a child allowance and expansions to the earned income tax credit, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and the federal minimum wage. We find that the policy packages have the potential to reduce CPS investigations by 11.3–19.7 percent annually. Moreover, our results are suggestive of a substantial reduction in racial disproportionality in CPS involvement. We estimate an 18.7–28.5 percent reduction in investigations for Black children and 13.3–24.4 percent for Hispanic children, compared with 6.7–13.0 percent for White children. Our results indicate that the nontrivial improvements in child safety accruing from any of the three policy packages should be considered in the calculus of policy implementation.