Children and the US Social Safety Net: Balancing Disincentives for Adults and Benefits for Children
探讨美国社会安全网对家庭援助较少的原因，聚焦于过去对成年人负面行为效应的关注超过了对儿童益处的考虑，并比较了OECD国家的数据。
A hallmark of every developed nation is the provision of a social safety net-a collection of public programs that deliver aid to the poor. Because of their higher rates of poverty, children are often a major beneficiary of safety net programs. Countries vary considerably in both the amount of safety net aid to children and the design of their programs. The United States provides less aid to families with children as a share of GDP (0.6 percent) than most countries: Among 37 OECD countries, only Turkey provides less, as shown in Figure 1. Countries that provide less aid to families with children have higher rates of child poverty. Among these same 37 countries, only Turkey and Costa Rica have higher child poverty rates than the United States. Why does the United States appear to be such an outlier in terms of the amount of aid it provides to families and child poverty rates? While there are likely multiple reasons, in this paper we focus on one possible explanation: Past emphasis on the negative behavioral effects of safety net programs for families over the benefits of such programs for children.