Project Description
Safety net policies are intended to provide some level of basic income support and economic security to eligible families, in turn improving developmental outcomes and life course trajectories for children. Yet, despite high rates of poverty, Latinx families are less likely than other groups to utilize these benefits.
Project Goals
The team will utilize a novel dataset, the creation of which was supported by a prior work with the W.R. Grant Foundation, to examine how variation in the state and local design of policies and their front-line delivery can hinder or facilitate the uptake of income support policies by Latinx families.
The team will apply various methodologies with nationally representative data sets to examine how design and implementation of state policies affect receipt of government benefits. These models will focus on Latinx families with equivalent low-income non-Latinx families to assess effects of different income support policies and their front-line implementation on youth social-emotional and academic outcomes. They will also examine variation in impact by parental nativity and citizenship status and youth age and gender. Findings from this study may inform policy and practice to reduce inequalities for Latinx families and build on existing knowledge about the impact of income-support policies for improving child outcomes.