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Investing in Parents to Invest in Children |
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MDRC: Remarks by Gordon L. Berlin, President, MDRC, at the National Summit on America’s Children, May 22, 2007. At MDRC, we focus on finding solutions to the problems that confront the poor by designing and rigorously evaluating programs in education (from preschool to postsecondary), income and work supports, workforce development, and community development, among other policy realms --- all with a goal of improving the lives of low-income families and children. This morning we've heard compelling evidence about the effects of the environment on early brain development and about promising interventions for poor children, as well as concerns about the daunting challenges and frequent failures when taking high-quality programs to scale. But even the most successful programs for children are likely to be undermined if we don't address the poverty of the families in which these children are growing up. Today, I will summarize a remarkably strong body of research --- much of it based on large-scale, well implemented, experimental research designs --- showing that supplementing the earnings of parents helps raise families out of poverty and improves the school performance of young children. The EITC, which is conditioned on work, is the largest antipoverty program for working families by far; more than 20 million taxpayers take advantage of the EITC each year, at a cost approaching $40 billion.
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