Goldin & Kleiman: Whose Child Is This? Improving Child-Claiming Rules In Safety Net Programs

Jacob Goldin (Stanford; Google Scholar) & Ariel Jurow Kleiman (Loyola-L.A.; Google Scholar), Whose Child is this? Improving Child-Claiming Rules in Safety Net Programs, 131 Yale L. J. ___ (2022):

To address the staggering problem of child poverty in the United States, Congress may soon enact a child allowance akin to those in other high-income countries. As lawmakers debate doing so, they must consider the design of rules that determine how benefits are distributed. Among the more important of these are “child-claiming” rules. These rules determine which adults can receive benefits for which children, driving how well a program helps recipients and satisfies public goals.

To address the staggering problem of child poverty in the United States, Congress may soon enact a child allowance akin to those in other high-income countries. As lawmakers debate doing so, they must consider the design of rules that determine how benefits are distributed. Among the more important of these are “child-claiming” rules. These rules determine which adults can receive benefits for which children, driving how well a program helps recipients and satisfies public goals.

Informed by a principle-driven framework, the Article considers how best to navigate these difficult tradeoffs and proposes specific child-claiming rules under several different benefit structures. The analytical framework can inform the design of administrable and inclusive child-claiming rules across safety net programs.