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Contributors
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- By Syed S. Ali, Nathan Allen, John E. Arbo, Elizabeth Arrington, Ani Aydin, Kenneth R. L. Bernard, Amy Caggiula, Nolan Caldwell, Jennifer L. Carey, Jennifer Carnell, Jayaram Chelluri, Michael N. Cocchi, Cristal Cristia, Vishal Demla, Bram Dolcourt, Andrew Eyre, Shawn Fagan, Brandy Ferguson, Sarah Fisher, Jonathan Friedstat, Brian C. Geyer, Brandon Godbout, Jeremy Gonda, Jeremy Goverman, Ashley L. Greiner, Casey Grover, Carla Haack, Abigail Hankin, John W. Hardin, Katrina L. Harper, Gregory Hayward, Stephen Hendriksen, Daniel Herbert-Cohen, Nadine Himelfarb, Calvin E. Hwang, Jacob D. Isserman, Joshua Jauregui, Joshua W. Joseph, Elena Kapilevich, Feras H. Khan, Sarvotham Kini, Karen A. Kinnaman, Ruth Lamm, Calvin Lee, Jarone Lee, Charles Lei, John Lemos, Daniel J. Lepp, Elisabeth Lessenich, Brandon Maughan, Julie Mayglothling, Kevin McConnell, Laura Medford-Davis, Kamal Medlej, Heather Meissen, Payal Modi, Joel Moll, Jolene H. Nakao, Matthew Nicholls, Lindsay Oelze, Carolyn Maher Overman, Viral Patel, Timothy C. Peck, Jeffrey Pepin, Candace Pettigrew, Byron Pitts, Zubaid Rafique, Chanu Rhee, Jonathan C. Roberts, Daniel Rolston, Steven C. Rougas, Benjamin Schnapp, Kathryn A. Seal, Raghu Seethala, Todd A. Seigel, Navdeep Sekhon, Kaushal Shah, Robert L. Sherwin, Kirill Shishlov, Ashley Shreves, Sebastian Siadecki, Jeffrey N. Siegelman, Liza Gonen Smith, Ted Stettner, Marie Carmelle Tabuteau, Joseph E. Tonna, N. Seth Trueger, Chad Van Ginkel, Bina Vasantharam, Graham Walker, Susan Wilcox, Sandra J. Williams, Matthew L. Wong, Nelson Wong, Samantha Wood, John Woodruff, Benjamin Zabar
- Edited by Kaushal Shah, Jarone Lee, Kamal Medlej, American University of Beirut, Scott D. Weingart
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- Book:
- Practical Emergency Resuscitation and Critical Care
- Published online:
- 05 November 2013
- Print publication:
- 24 October 2013, pp xi-xx
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seventeen - Public policies that support families with young children: variation across US states
- Edited by Koen Vleminckx, Timothy M. Smeeding
- Robert O. Rowlands
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- Book:
- Child well-being child poverty and child policy
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 20 January 2022
- Print publication:
- 23 February 2001, pp 433-458
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- Chapter
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Summary
Introduction
One in four children under the age of six in the United States lives in poverty. Although child poverty is high nationwide, there is substantial cross-state variation. In the mid-1990s, for example, the percentage of poor children under age six varied from 11% in Utah to 44% in the District of Columbia (Bennett and Li, 1998). Across the states infant mortality ranged from 5 to 18 deaths per 1,000 live births; high school dropout rates ranged from 3% to 13%; and violent deaths ranged from 19 to 456 per 100,000 teenagers (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 1998).
Such variation suggests that state-level factors, including government policies, influence children’s lives. Extensive comparative research examines variation in social policy across industrialised countries, including the US. The impact of policy variation within the US has received much less attention. Scholars who do consider state variation typically focus on a single policy variable (such as AFDC benefit levels) and therefore fail to explore variation in how states’ packages of programmes – cash and noncash, transfers and services, targeted and universal – affect families and children.
In this chapter we propose a new approach to understanding how state-level policies may affect childhood poverty in the US. We begin by identifying opportunities for public intervention. Using this framework, we identify characteristics of certain government programmes that we would expect to influence families’ resources. Using state-level measures, we employ cluster analysis to identify five groups of states with similar policy packages as of 1994. We then describe the policy packages and examine variation in child poverty rates across the resulting clusters.
The comparative approach we use draws on several lessons from crossnational comparative welfare state scholarship. First, we explicitly characterise and compare policies in and across the US states. Second, we include multidimensional policy variables that go beyond public expenditures. We combine traditional quantitative measures (eg spending per recipient) and qualitative elements (eg programme rules) to capture the magnitude of public investment along with policy ‘architecture’. We consider multiple sets of policies, or ‘policy packages’ by analysing 11 programme areas and three important characteristics of each. Finally, we draw on cross-national scholarship about welfare regimes as a model for studying state variation in the US.