12/20/2023 0 Comments Baby brain appThe temporary expansion of the child tax credit, passed last year, offered subsidies to all but the richest parents at a one-year cost of more than $100 billion. There are a variety of public and private programs underway in the United States to measure the effects of a guaranteed income on poor families, and many other rich countries offer broad children’s allowances without condition. Though child poverty subsequently fell to record lows, the reasons are in dispute, and rising inequality and volatility have revived Democratic support for subsidies. President Bill Clinton changed the Democratic Party’s stance a quarter-century ago by abolishing welfare guarantees and shifting aid toward parents who work. Conservatives say unconditional payments erode work and marriage, increasing poverty in the long run. Progressives argue that poor children need an income floor, citing research that shows even brief periods of childhood poverty can lead to lower adult earnings and worse health. The question of whether cash aid helps or hurts children is central to social policy. The payments will continue until the children are at least 4 years old, and the researchers plan further tests. The differences were statistically significant by most, but not all, measures and were greatest in parts of the brain most associated with cognitive advancement. Using electroencephalograms, or EEG tests, to evaluate the children at age 1, the researchers found that those in the high-cash group had more of the fast brain activity other research has linked to cognitive development than those in the low-cash group. One group received a nominal $20 a month and another received $333. Noble and colleagues from six universities recruited a thousand mother-infant pairs within days of the babies’ birth and randomly divided the families into two groups. Noble, a physician and neuroscientist at Teachers College, Columbia University, who helped lead the study.ĭr. “This is the first study to show that money, in and of itself, has a causal impact on brain development,” said Dr. The study released on Monday offers evidence that poverty itself holds children back from their earliest moments. But it has not been clear if those differences come directly from the shortage of money or from related factors like parental education or neighborhood influences. Most Republicans oppose the monthly grants, citing the cost and warning that unconditional aid, which they describe as welfare, discourages parents from working.Įvidence abounds that poor children on average start school with weaker cognitive skills, and neuroscientists have shown that the differences extend to brain structure and function. Biden failed to unite Democrats behind a large social policy bill that would have extended it. “If I was a policymaker, I’d pay attention to this, but it would be premature of me to pass a bill that gives every family $300 a month.”Ī temporary federal program of near-universal children’s subsidies - up to $300 a month per child through an expanded child tax credit - expired this month after Mr. Nelson, who served as a consultant to the study. “It’s potentially a groundbreaking study,” said Dr. While the brain patterns documented in the study are often associated with higher cognitive skills, he said, that is not always the case. Nelson III of Harvard, reacted more cautiously, noting the full effect of the payments - $333 a month - would not be clear until the children took cognitive tests. via Lauren Meyer/Baby's First YearsĪnother researcher, Charles A.
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