Addressing the School Readiness Gap:
The Promise of Cash Assistance Programs as
Platforms for Innovation?
Lisa Gennetian
Improving Low-Income Children’s School Readiness:
New Perspectives on an Enduring Challenge
September 29-30, 2010
The Overall Landscape(2007)
No.Recips(000) Expends(mil)
Medicaid
School Food
SNAP
EITC
WIC
SSI
Housing
TANF
54,900
39,400
25,600
23,800
8,000
7,100
4,900
3,800
Ben-Shalom, Moffitt & Scholz (2010).
$328,900
10,900
30,400
48,500
5,400
41,200
39,400
11,600
Is TANF a Promising Gateway?
Half of today’s caseloads are child-only cases
(12% in 1990 to over 30% in 2000)
62% of poor children received TANF in 1994,
plummeting to 31% in 2003
Growing % of what would have been TANF
cases are disconnected single mothers (not
working and not on TANF)
Test of recent recession: What is the future of
TANF as safety net? A work support?
Emergency support?
Other limitations
TANF program:
IS means-tested, so outreach is only as effective as
income eligibility
HAS conditions and penalties: time limits,
sanctions
RELIES on performance accountability that does
not prioritize children’s developmental outcomes,
never mind school readiness, as a performance
metric
Re-Framing
Not cash assistance but….
Platforms that target economic self-sufficiency
of parents (or families) with young children
•Why is this a promising approach?
•What are the gateways? Who is eligible? Who
is served?
•What is most amenable to innovation, low
cost/high impact?
Stylized facts
Lots of moms (and, dads) work and earnings is a key source
of income
In 2008: Young children are particularly likely to live in lowincome families--44 percent of children under the age of 6
live in low-income families.
51 percent of low-income children have at least one parent
who works full-time, year-round.
In 2009, 64.2% mothers with children under 6 years old
participated in the labor force. The participation rate of
mothers with infants under a year old was 56.6%.
The Evidence Base
Income has a small independent positive effect on child
development, & employment has few detrimental effects

Negative Income Tax experiments Income supplements
(Salkind & Haskins, 1982): increased grades and test
scores

Earnings supplements programs vs. mandatory work
(Morris, Duncan & Rodrigues, 2010): $1,000 increase
6% SD increase in achievement

EIC expansions Dahl & Lochner (2008) : $1,000
increase 6% SD increase combined math & reading
test scores
Brooks-Gunn, Han & Waldfogel (2010); Gennetian,
Castells, & Morris (2010).
7
Improve economic self-sufficiency (and
improve school achievement by a bit)
Use work-income-security platforms as
gateways for outreach, recruitment and
intervention (Ca$hPlus)
(*added bonus: parents, non-gender specific)
Promising Gateways: EIC and Tax Sites
VITA (voluntary income tax assistance) sites:
churches, credit unions and sometimes multiservice community organizations
In 2010, VITA sites served 1.2 million clients
and over 400,000 EITC (earned income tax
credit) recipients
Promising Gateways: WIA
The 1998 Workforce Investment Act (WIA) created a
new, comprehensive workforce investment system.
One-Stop service delivery system (job search,
individual employment plans, training and linkages
with other community services)
$2.9 billion expended 7/08 to 6/09, half for adult
activities (vs. youth or dislocated workers)
Some evidence WIA programs increased earnings,
(Heinrich, Mueser & Troske, 2008)
Over 1.5 million women served in WIA programs from
2006 to 2008
Promising Gateways: Other examples of onestop multi-service organizations
Community Action Programs
($3M families/year. 63% offer training/employment)
Seedco
NYC Financial Clinics
•Foundation Communities, TX
Innovation & Evidence-Building
History of fertile ground for innovation and
experimentation (and scale-up):
•Welfare waiver experiments
•EIC expansions
•Work Advancement and Support Center
Demonstrations (Miller, Tessler & Van Dok, 2010)
•The next “New Hope” model (Bos, Gennetian,
Duncan and Hill 2008)
Challenges & Limitations
Miss the growing % of disconnected workers.
Between fiscal year 1996 and 2004, the number of
single mothers receiving TANF fell by 2 million, yet
employment among single mothers rose by only
about 1 million. (Parrot and Sherman, 2006)
Take-up and retention
Speed of responsiveness to local economic cycles
and labor market
Complicated funding & political silos
Rating Promising Platforms
Least promising: TANF (low caseloads, most
severe cases, questionable public and political
appetite)
Moderately promising: EIC and tax system—
huge initial reach but no structure for ongoing
contact. Capitalize on sites with combined
multiple services.
Most promising: WIA, one-stops, multi-service
year-around (micro and macro) needsresponsive organizations
Take a step back: Conceptual Framework
Bronfenbrenner’s Microsystem
Housing & neighborhood initiatives
(the microsystem as a platform?)
Section 8 and housing assistance:
•13% of children in U.S. live in crowded housing.
•66% of children in low income households (income
<200% of poverty level) housing cost exceed 30% of
income.
Moving to Opportunity; Jobs Plus
School/neighborhood based initiatives:
Promise Neighborhoods (Harlem Children’s Zone)
“cradle-to-career” services!
References
Ben-Shalom, Yonatan, Robert Moffitt, and John Karl Scholz. 2010. An Assessment of the
Effectiveness of Anti-Poverty Programs in the United States. In preparation for the Oxford Handbook
of the Economics of Poverty.
Berlin, Gordon. 2010. Rethinking Welfare in the Great Recession: Issues in the Reauthorization of
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families . New York: MDRC.
Bos, J., G. Duncan, L. Gennetian, and H. Hill (2007). New Hope: Fulfilling America’s Promise to “Make
Work Pay” with Johannes Bos, Greg Duncan, and Heather Hill. Hamilton Project Paper. Washington,
DC: The Brookings Institution.
Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, Wen-Jui Han and Jane Waldfogel. 2010. FIRST-YEAR MATERNAL
EMPLOYMENT AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT IN THE FIRST 7 YEARS 75(2) Monographs for the Society
for Research on Child Development
Annie E. Casey Foundation Kids Count
http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/acrossstates/Rankings.aspx?ind=71
Employment Characteristics of Families, downloaded September 24, 2010.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/famee.nr0.htm
Dahl, G., & Lochner, L. (2008). The impact of family income on child achievement: Evidence from the
Earned Income Tax Credit. (NBER Working Paper Series: Working Paper No. 14599). Cambridge, MA:
National Bureau of Economic Research.
References
Gennetian, L. A., N. Castells, and P. Morris ( 2010) Meeting the Basic Needs of Children: Does
Income Matter? National Poverty Center Working Paper No. 2009-11. Gennetian, L.A., T.
Leventhal and S. Newman (eds) special issue of Children and Youth Services Review 32(9).
Heinrich, C.P., P. Mueser, and K. Troske 2008. Workforce Investment Act Nonexperimental Net
Impact Evaluation, Impaq International.
http://wdr.doleta.gov/research/FullText_Documents/Workforce%20Investment%20Act%20No
n-Experimental%20Net%20Impact%20Evaluation%20-%20Final%20Report.pdf
Miller, Cynthia, Betsy Tessler and Mark Van Dok. 2010. Strategies to Help Low Wage Workers
Advance: Implementation and Early Impacts of the Work Advancement and Support Center
Demonstration. New York: MDRC.
Parrott, Sharon and Arloc sherman. 2006. TANF at 10 Program Results are More Mixed Than
Often Understood
Salkind, N. J., & Haskins, R. (1982). Negative income tax: The impact on children from lowincome families. Journal of Family Issues, 3(2), 165-180.
Workforce Investment Act: http://www.doleta.gov/budget/docs/06_30_09combspend.pdf