Child health and the associated cost for society and the family needs to be factored into these discussions.
“30 to 40 percent of children younger than 4 coming through the medical center’s pediatric emergency room are living in food-insecure households.”
I am not making a “think of the children argument” just pointing out the costs to society of underfunded families raising children.
With #3, that money needs to actually be spent, right? And while refundable, still requires employment?
Oh really?
The child poverty rate (16 percent) is nearly one-and-a-half times higher than that for adults ages 18-64 (11 percent) and two times higher than that for adults 65 and older (10 percent).May 3, 2021e
I’d like to aim for a bit lower rate there. Like a lot lower. Halving it sounds like a sound policy. You obviously feel otherwise. What level are you okay with?
Why do you want to punish poor kids? They didn’t choose their parents.
Correct.
The credit can be up to $4,000. But I’d only assumed $5,200 of actual expenses and the credit tops out at the lower of $4,000 or 50% of actual expenses. So I only put in $2,600 for the credit, since I’m assuming only $5,200 of expenses above and beyond completely-taxpayer-funded Head Start.
But if my assumption is off and she spends more then she’s really only paying for half because she has some unused credit remaining.
I don’t want to punish poor kids. In fact I put aside quite a lot of my money to help poor kids.
I just want to make sure that we don’t cross over from “helping” to “incentivizing people to have”.
I think the current tally is that a single mom making $24,000 and contributing 5% to a 401K will receive roughly $22,163 in child support and government social programs that she wouldn’t have gotten without the kid. And the estimated annual cost of raising a kid is $15,819.
That’s marking state income tax benefits (or AK permanent fund) as $0. (Which is true in states with no income tax or a flat tax, but not true in many states.)
That breaks down as follows:
Federal Tax savings: $5,359 before AFP plus an extra ~$3,500 with the AFP changes for a total of roughly $8,859
State Tax: Anywhere from $0 to … I dunno, I definitely didn’t check them all. In Oregon (where I based all of my calculations) it would be $253 lower tax before credits plus a $210 exemption credit plus ~$300 EITC for a total of $753. I’m willing to mark it zero, but I think it’s worth noting that it’s not always zero.
$2,880 SNAP
$4,800 Section 8 housing
$1,424 assumed value of Medicaid for child
$600 conservative assumption for the value of WIC / free school lunches
$3,600 in child support assuming that Dad also makes $24,000
Note that getting rid of the 401K actually made for a slightly bigger difference.
I think you’ve made a lot of unrealistic assumptions.
Such as???
Think about a single mom working 2,000 hours a year at $12 an hour saying hey “if I had another kid” I could get some sweet government bennies!
And yeah your assumptions are freaking absurd.
You keep saying that, but I’ve backed up most of my assumptions. Maybe you skipped those posts?
Your assumptions are built on quicksand. They are base on the Conservative Myth of the Welfare Queen
I see. You don’t actually have any criticism of my assumptions. Got it.
When you focus on the “incentivizing people” you need to take into account why people make decisions. You are trying to answer the question is an incentive created rather than will an incentive be used. Focusing on the can it be done and trying to eliminate that can is not the whole picture. If an incentive exists will it be used? How much? How much of an extra burden to society is the use of the incentive you are concerned about in comparison to the benefit of the programs generating the incentive?
Have you ever dealt with signing up / recertification in one of these programs? You list them out like it’s a cake walk to get free $, but it’s a major PITA. I was the “responsible party” for someone with Medicaid for long term care. I’m not sure how the person in question would hold down a $24,000 job while juggling all this.
I also question whether these programs stack as you’ve assumed. But I’m too lazy to spend time on debunking it, so I guess you win there.
I’ve signed up for WIC as a foster parent and wasn’t even required to prove income (they qualify no matter what my income) and it was still a big headache. Not to mention the process and using the benefits are both very dehumanizing.
I don’t think Twig’s assertion is realistic. Possible? Maybe. It’s like voter fraud. It doesn’t happen on any meaningful basis and any attempts to prevent it are really just attempts to prevent legitimate voters from casting their vote. Only replace legitimate voters with poor people and casting their vote with getting assistance.
These are certainly fair questions… which are hard to answer accurately.
I was pointing out that the incentive exists and told that I was inaccurate.
I’m certainly most familiar with the income tax piece, as I am a VITA volunteer. VITA is a program run by United Way whereby low income and elderly folks can get their taxes prepared for free using quality software and trained volunteers who have been tested in their knowledge specifically with the facets of tax preparation that are common among low-income and elderly folks. (CTC/ACTC/ODC, Dependent Care credit, Schedules C & SE, EITC (specifically why people are getting disqualified or getting less than they thought), taxation of unemployment, probably one or two others that I’m not thinking of at the moment.
So that particular piece, the biggest one, is fairly straightforward, although it’ll cost the better part of a Saturday. If the $24,000 job wasn’t Monday-Friday it’d probably be a little simpler as I don’t think the M-F locations are as busy as the Saturday locations. (And possibly Sunday locations exist… I’m hardly an expert. I know of 3 VITA locations near me, none of which are open on Sunday, but that’s hardly proof that they don’t exist.)
I assume that the other programs are a pain to sign up for initially, but less burdensome once signed up.
And I know that Medicaid is a big fat PITA for foster kids. I have several friends & relatives who’ve fostered. I think it’s slightly less of a PITA for non-foster kids, although I’m sure it’s still a fairly big PITA.
I don’t think I ever implied that it was a cake-walk to get registered for those programs. Anything run by the government is likely to be a clusterf***.
Again, which part is not realistic?
The federal income tax portion of your example is the least questionable part. LOL
But you are positing that people are planning to use these programs to the fullest to profit off a kid, so time spent dealing with the red tape of the government does factor in. It’s perhaps the deterrent you’re seeking…
Could you share how your experience has been with this program? I found out about it earlier this year and it’s a volunteer opportunity that I’m considering for future years.