Abstract
In recent years, the big news in Social Security reform has been the program’s fiscal concerns. In light of concerns about both program costs and benefit adequacy, we propose an effective and relatively inexpensive targeted program to provide a minimally adequate floor to old-age income through the Social Security system. This minimum benefit plan would provide a cost-effective method for reducing elder poverty to very low levels. A key element is that the benefit would not count toward income eligibility thresholds for other social programs. Other aspects include an income-tested benefit that would bring beneficiaries to 100 percent of the poverty threshold; application by filing of a 1040 income tax return; and setting of benefit levels and distribution through the Social Security Administration.
- © 2018 Russell Sage Foundation. Shaefer, H. Luke, Sophie Collyer, Greg Duncan, Kathryn Edin, Irwin Garfinkel, David Harris, Timothy M. Smeeding, Jane Waldfogel, Christopher Wimer, and Hirokazu Yoshikawa. 2018. “A Universal Child Allowance: A Plan to Reduce Poverty and Income Instability Among Children in the United States.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 4(2): 22–42. DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2018.4.2.02. Direct correspondence to: H. Luke Shaefer at lshaefer{at}umich.edu, University of Michigan, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, 735 South State St., Ann Arbor, MI 48104; Sophie Collyer at smc2246{at}columbia.edu, Center on Poverty and Social Policy, Columbia University School of Social Work, 1255 Amsterdam Ave., New York, NY 10027; Greg Duncan at gduncan{at}uci.edu, School of Education, University of California, Irvine, 3200 Education, Irvine, CA 92697; Kathryn Edin at kathy_edin{at}jhu.edu, Zanvyl Krieger School, Johns Hopkins University, Department of Sociology, 533 Mergenthaler Hall, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218; Irwin Garfinkel at ig3{at}columbia.edu, Columbia University School of Social Work, 1255 Amsterdam Ave., New York, NY 10025; David Harris at davidbharris{at}mac.com, Columbia Population Research Center, 1255 Amsterdam Ave., New York, NY 10027; Timothy M. Smeeding at smeeding{at}wisc.edu, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 3464 SSSB, 1180 Observatory Dr., Madison, WI 53706; Jane Waldfogel at jw205{at}columbia.edu, Columbia University School of Social Work, 1255 Amsterdam Ave., New York, NY 10027; Christopher Wimer at cw2727{at}columbia.edu, Columbia University School of Social Work, 1255 Amsterdam Ave., 7th Floor, New York, NY 10027; and Hirokazu Yoshikawa at hiro.yoshikawa{at}nyu.edu, New York University, 726 Broadway, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10003 .
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