The livestream below will begin at the time of the event.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, close to one in three children in the United States lived in or near poverty. Federal relief such as the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act has the potential to stop the worst of the projected poverty increases, but has failed to provide enough aid for children and families. With key income support provisions of the CARES Act set to expire at the end of July, there is an increased urgency surrounding calls to include a cash support for children delivered on a regular, ongoing basis in the next round of stimulus packages.

Join us on Tuesday, July 21 at 11:00 a.m. EST as leading national experts discuss a forthcoming report on how child poverty could be reduced if the United States adopted a child allowance modeled on Canada’s successful Child Benefit. 

Please register to obtain the Zoom link.

Featuring:

  • Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO)
  • Representative Suzan DelBene (D-WA)
  • Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)
  • Moderator: Megan A. Curran, research scientist, Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University 
  • Christopher Wimer, co-director, Center on Poverty and Social Policy at the Columbia University School of Social Work
  • David B. Harris, president, Children’s Research and Education Institute
  • Jeff Madrick, author, senior fellow at The Century Foundation, and director of the Bernard L. Schwartz Rediscovering Government Initiative
  • Mark Stabile, Stone Chaired Professor of Wealth Inequality and professor of economics, European Institute of Business Administration (INSEAD)
  • Samuel Hammond, director of poverty and welfare policy, Niskanen Center
  • Sophie Collyer, research director, Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University
  • Vonnie C. McLoyd, Ewart A. C. Thomas Collegiate Professor of Psychology, University of Michigan

Presented by The Century Foundation’s Bernard L. Schwartz Rediscovering Government Initiative and the Columbia University Center on Poverty and Social Policy. 

Speaker Bios

Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) has represented Colorado in the United States Senate since 2009. Recognized as a pragmatic and independent thinker, he is driven by an obligation to create more opportunity for the next generation and address our nation’s greatest challenges—including education, climate change, immigration, health care, and national security. Senator Bennet is co-author of the American Family Act. https://www.bennet.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/about

Representative Suzan DelBene (D-WA) has represented Washington State since 2012, and is a member of the House Ways & Means Committee. Prior to being elected to Congress, she was an executive with Microsoft. She is one of four co-authors of the American Family Act of 2019, which would replace the existing Child Tax Credit with an expanded version that would increase the credit for all children and make the credit fully refundable. https://delbene.house.gov/about/full-biography.htm

Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) is the Congresswoman from Connecticut’s Third Congressional District and has served in the House of Representatives since 1991. She is the Chair of the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee. Representative DeLauro has led the fight to expand the Child Tax Credit to provide tax relief to millions of families, as well as to create a Young Child Tax Credit to give families with young children an economic lift, through legislation like the American Family Act and the Heroes Act. https://delauro.house.gov/about

Megan A. Curran is a postdoctoral research scientist at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University. Her research explores policy strategies for child poverty reduction, with an emphasis on income supports, poverty targets, and cross-national learning—including how the structure and impact of child allowance programs in other wealthy nations might inform the creation of a national U.S. child allowance. Recent work on how COVID-19 economic relief efforts impact children and families also examines the ways in which a regularly delivered child allowance can support children through the immediate crisis and beyond. Curran has worked as a legislative analyst in the United States House of Representatives and the Scottish Parliament and as a researcher on child and family poverty and policy solutions in the United States, United Kingdom, and Ireland. Curran holds a PhD in social policy from University College Dublin, Ireland.

Christopher Wimer is co-director of the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at the Columbia University School of Social Work. He is also the project director on the Robin Hood Poverty Tracker, which measures poverty in New York City. Wimer conducts research on the measurement of poverty, as well as historical trends in poverty and the impacts of social policies on the poverty rate. He also focuses on how families cope with poverty and economic insecurity, with a particular focus on how families manage food insecurity and other forms of material hardship. His work has been featured in leading scientific journals including Demography, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Social Service Review, Social Science Research, Criminology, and the Journal of Marriage and Family. 

David B. Harris is the president of Children’s Research and Education Institute, a nonprofit organization that educates the public on the effect of politics and policies on children and families. He is a partner at Kids Project, an advocacy organization on child and family policy. Dr. Harris is a senior research fellow at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University and an affiliate of the Center on Poverty and Inequality at Stanford University. He has authored articles on children, poverty, and taxes and presented the work at conferences and press appearances. Dr. Harris has been an early childhood teacher in New York City. He holds a PhD in social welfare from Columbia University. 

Jeff Madrick is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation and director of the Bernard L. Schwartz Rediscovering Government Initiative. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at The Cooper Union, and a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books. He is a former economics columnist for the New York Times. Before Invisible Americans, Madrick published Seven Bad Ideas: How Mainstream Economists Have Damaged America and the World (Knopf) in 2014, which makes a comprehensive case against prevailing mainstream economic thinking. He is the author of a half dozen other books, including Taking America (Bantam) and The End of Affluence (Random House), both of which were New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Taking America also was chosen by Business Week as one of the ten best books of the year.  He edited a book of public policy essays, Unconventional Wisdom (The Century Foundation) and also authored the book Why Economies Grow (Basic Books/Century) and Age of Greed (Knopf). His book The Case for Big Government (Princeton) won a PEN America non-fiction award.

Mark Stabile is the Stone Chaired Professor of Wealth Inequality and professor of economics at the European Institute of Business Administration (INSEAD). His recent work focuses on inequality, poverty, child health, health care financing, and tax policy. He has advised the governments of the United States, Canada, and Ontario, among others, on health care reform and programs to reduce child poverty. He is associate editor of the Journal of Health Economics. Professor Stabile received his PhD from Columbia University and his BA from the University of Toronto.

Samuel Hammond is the director of poverty and welfare policy at the Niskanen Center. His research focuses on the effectiveness of cash transfers in alleviating poverty, and how free markets can be complemented by robust systems of social insurance. His commentary has been published in the Atlantic, the National Review, and the American Conservative. He has also been featured in New York Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Vox, and Slate. He previously worked as an economist for the government of Canada specializing in rural economic development, and as a graduate research fellow for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. 

Sophie Collyer is a research director at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University. Her research focuses on anti-poverty policies at the national and local levels, with a particular interest in child allowances, federal and local minimum wage policy, and housing policy. Her current work looks at the impacts of reforms to the Child Tax Credit, as well as the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on well-being and economic security in New York City. Her New York City work employs data from the Robin Hood Poverty Tracker. Collyer has also worked as a caseworker in Alternative-to-Incarceration programs and as a middle school teacher. Collyer holds a dual-degree (MPA/MSW) in social policy and economic analysis from Columbia University.

Vonnie C. McLoyd is the Ewart A. C. Thomas Collegiate Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor.  A developmental psychologist, McLoyd studies the pathways by which family-level poverty and economic stress influence family life and children’s socioemotional adjustment and processes that buffer the adverse effects of these experiences.  She was a member of the National Academies of Sciences Consensus Committee on “Building an Agenda to Reduce the Number of Children in Poverty by Half in 10 Years,” which issued its report in 2019 titled “A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty.” She is past Associate Editor of Child Development and American Psychologist.  Currently, she is co-Director of the University of Michigan Developmental Psychology Training Program on Context and Human Neurobiology funded by NICHD.