Category: children

The right way to think about social and economic rights

~ MilesCorak ~ 2 Comments

The Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which we celebrate every December 10th, offers both a powerful and beautiful statement of what it means to be human and the goals we should pursue as a society. But the Declaration is an incomplete guide to designing the programs to meet these goals: it offers inspiration to advocates, but not a guidebook for pragmatists.

Pragmatists and policy makers need to read the Universal Declaration through the lens of economists, rather than don the robes of lawyers.

Human Rights Day 2012, click to enlarge

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The US Senate wonders about tax policy for the American Dream: How can income transfers be designed to benefit all children in need?

~ MilesCorak ~ 3 Comments

The tax system is increasingly used to transfer cash benefits to families with children, but the United States accepts the trade-offs in program design very differently than other countries and gives children much less support.

In response to my July 10th testimony to the Senate Committee on Finance hearing on “Helping Young People Achieve the American Dream” I received some homework, a series of questions asking me for a good deal more detail. You can review all of the questions on my November 11th post. Child poverty is central to discussions of social mobility, and it is natural to wonder how tax policy can be designed to support the incomes of the least advantaged.

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The US Senate wonders about tax policy for the American Dream: Do parents act in the best interests of their children?

~ MilesCorak ~ 7 Comments

How should programs intended to support children in low-income families be designed if parents don’t always act in the best interests of their children?

This question, among others, was posed to me in response to my July 10th testimony to the Senate Committee on Finance hearing on “Helping Young People Achieve the American Dream.”  You can review all of the questions on my November 11th post.

In one way or another they address the fundamental drivers of the extent to which children grow up to be adults having the same socio-economic status as their parents. Family background matters for life chances because of three related forces: inequalities originating in the labour market, the capacity of families to invest in the skills and aptitudes of their children, and the degree to which public policy levels the playing field.

What parents do matters a good deal, and a question posed by the Committee Chairperson, Senator Max Baucus, recognizes this, and wonders about the implications for the design of public policy.

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The US Senate wonders about tax policy for the American Dream: why are schools failing to promote social mobility?

~ MilesCorak ~ 28 Comments

The American education system is of relatively more advantage to the relatively advantaged. As a result it does less than it could to promote opportunity.

In response to my July 10th testimony to the Senate Committee on Finance hearing on “Helping Young People Achieve the American Dream” I received some homework, a series of questions asking me for a good deal more detail. You can review all of the questions on my November 11th post, but a couple of questions posed by the Committee Chairman, Senator Max Baucus of Montana, speak to probably the most important driver of social mobility, and raise particularly important issues for public policies.

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The US Senate wonders about tax policy for the American Dream: Senator Baucus asks if things are getting worse

~ MilesCorak ~ 2 Comments

Is the American Dream harder to achieve now than a generation ago?

In response to my July 10th testimony to the Senate Committee on Finance hearing on “Helping Young People Achieve the American Dream” I received some homework, a series of questions asking me for a good deal more detail. You can review all of the questions on my November 11th post, but this one posed by the Committee Chairman, Senator Max Baucus of Montana, is particularly relevant.

Compared to many other countries the United States is both more unequal, and more of this inequality is passed on to the next generation.

Knowing where Americans stand compared to other countries is interesting because it helps us to begin to understand the underlying causes, and hence how public policy might influence outcomes.

But for the same reasons it is just as interesting, if not more so, to compare the United States not just to other countries, but to itself in a previous time.

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Children of immigrants make more progress in Australia and Canada than in the UK or the US

~ MilesCorak ~ 9 Comments

Young children whose families immigrate to Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States are as prepared and capable of starting school as their native-born counterparts, with one exception: vocabulary and language development.

But the resulting disadvantages in reading skills are overcome to a much greater degree as they progress through school in Australia and Canada than they are in the United Kingdom and the United States.

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