Poverty is an important predictor of child maltreatment. Social policies that strengthen the economic security of low-income families, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), may reduce child maltreatment by impeding the pathways through which poverty leads to it. We used variations in the presence and generosity of supplementary EITCs offered at the state level and administrative child maltreatment data from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) to examine the effect of EITC policies on state-level rates of child maltreatment from 2004 through 2017. Two-way fixed effects models indicated that a 10-percentage point increase in the generosity of refundable state EITC benefits was associated with 241 fewer reports of neglect per 100,000 children (95% Confidence Interval [CI] [−449, −33]). An increase in EITC generosity was associated with fewer reports of neglect both among children ages 0–5 (−324 per 100,000; 95% CI [−582, −65]) and children ages 6–17 (−201 per 100,000; 95% CI [−387, −15]). Findings also suggested associations between the EITC and reductions in other types of maltreatment (physical abuse, emotional abuse); however, those did not gain statistical significance. Economic support policies may reduce the risk of child maltreatment, especially neglect, and improve child wellbeing.

We examine the effects of an unconditional cash transfer on the economic wellbeing (material hardship, ability to meet needs, money on hand, use of friends and family for assistance, and employment) of families and children with very low incomes. We use a parameterized differencein-differences approach to study the impact of the 2021 temporary expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC), which provided monthly, unconditional cash payments to families with children from July to December 2021. The 2021 monthly CTC reduced the number of hardships families experienced, and in particular their food insecurity. We find some evidence that the credit reduced medical hardships, reduced reliance on friends and family for food, and improved respondents' ability to pay utility bills. We also find no effects on any labor supply measures. Analyses that examine differences by racial/ethnic groups show that the effects are somewhat stronger for Black families than for Hispanic and White families, but the differences are not large.

OBJECTIVES: Poverty and low income are associated with increased risk for child maltreatment. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC) are among the largest antipoverty programs in the United States. We estimated associations between income transfer payments via the EITC and CTC and child maltreatment reports in the period shortly after families receive payments from these programs. METHODS: We linked weekly EITC and CTC refund data from the Internal Revenue Service to state-specific child maltreatment report data from 48 states and the District of Columbia during the 2015 through 2018 tax seasons (January – April). We leveraged the natural experiment of a legislated change in the timing of EITC and CTC transfer payments to low-income families and quasi-experimental methods to estimate the association between EITC and CTC payments and child maltreatment reports. RESULTS: EITC and CTC payments were associated with lower state-level rates of child maltreatment reports. For each additional $1000 in per-child EITC and CTC tax refunds, state-level rates of reported child maltreatment declined in the week of and 4 weeks following refund payments by an overall estimated 5.0% (95% confidence interval = 2.3%–7.7%). CONCLUSIONS: Federal income assistance programs are associated with immediate reductions in child maltreatment reporting. These results are particularly relevant at this time, as expansions to such programs continue to be discussed at the state and federal levels.

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