2026 Spring Seminar Series Seminar: Colleen Heflin Syracuse University

This event is co-sponsored by the UK Center for Poverty Research.

The Glass is Half-Full: The safety net for low-income women surrounding childbirth

Co-authors: Taryn W. Morrissey (American University), Hyojeong Kim (Syracuse University)

Abstract: Declining U.S. fertility levels and the rising economic costs associated with childrearing have led to discussions about the effectiveness of existing social welfare policies in providing economic support surrounding childbirth. We use administrative data from Virginia for Unemployment Insurance (UI) Wage Records, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), with simulated benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infant, and Children (WIC), the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and the Child Tax Credit (CTC), to examine changes in resources in the year after childbirth relative to year before. We find that social welfare-connected mothers, on average, experience a $2,097 reduction in annual earnings, take 2.2 quarters out of the labor market, and are connected to TANF for 11.4 months and SNAP for 18.4 months after childbirth. The total value of simulated safety net benefits offsets the lost earnings of our sample in the four quarters following childbirth, but not during pregnancy and the quarter of childbirth. Our results provide evidence that, under the assumption of full uptake, the existing safety net could mitigate the economic insecurity following childbirth, but largely through nutrition assistance benefits, which are not fungible.