2022-02-17
53 分钟Among O.E.C.D. nations, the U.S. has one of the highest rates of child poverty. Until recently, it looked as if Washington was about to change that. But then … Washington happened.
Hey, there, its Stephen Dubner.
Last year, we started producing a series of episodes about american culture and how the US is an outlier in a variety of ways.
If youre interested, the whole series can be found@freakonomics.com.
american culture the idea was to explore why the media and policing and transportation policy in the US are so different than in most places.
One other big difference we examined was how other countries support families with young children, especially lower income families.
Children, as it's been said, are our future.
And some countries tend to view an investment in children as an investment in a more prosperous, shared future.
In the US, not so much.
But in recent years, the american approach seem to be changing, especially through an aggressive expansion of what's known as the child tax credit.
This happened during the Trump administration and the first year of the Biden administration.
And of course, it coincided with the economic catastrophe wrought by the pandemic on many lower income families.
According to researchers at Columbia University, this additional aid has been extremely effective, keeping nearly 4 million children out of poverty.
So it seemed like a no brainer that this aid would be extended, perhaps made permanent.
In Washington, it had bipartisan support and momentum.
But then, Washington being Washington, it wasn't extended.
So we thought it was a good time to update this episode that we first put out last year.
It's called why does the richest country in the world have so many poor kids?
I was under the impression that raising children is pretty much foolproof, that if you just give them some food and they don't freeze to death or fall off a mountain or whatever, that they'll inevitably turn out perfectly fine.
Would you say that's an accurate assessment?
Yes.