Other
The Effects of the 2021 Child Tax Credit on Parents’ Psychological Well-Being
Lisa A. Gennetian, Anna Gassman-Pines ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-sonnet-5-5This chapter reviews research on whether the 2021 expanded US Child Tax Credit changed parents' psychological well-being. Improving parents' mental health was not a stated aim of the credit, but the extra income might have affected it. Some studies found lower depression and anxiety among parents, and others using similar methods found no effect. The authors say the evidence does not show that the credit made well-being worse. They conclude that the evidence is thin, narrow and mixed, and that a wider range of measurement approaches is needed.
Key points
- Improving psychological well-being was not the explicit focus of the 2021 expanded Child Tax Credit.
- Some studies found reductions in clinical depression and anxiety and in subclinical symptoms among parents.
- Other studies using similar methods found no effect on the same outcomes.
- The evidence does not point to the credit worsening psychological well-being.
- The evidence is described as thin, narrow and mixed, even when comparable income-support studies are included.
Limitations
Only a short abstract is available, so the studies reviewed, their designs and any effect sizes are not described. The outcomes are parents' mental health, not children's well-being, and the document does not report child outcomes.
Abstract
Although improving psychological well-being was not the explicit focus of the 2021 expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC), psychological health outcomes may have been affected by the positive income shocks generated by the credit. In this chapter we ask: How did the 2021 expanded CTC affect parents’ psychological well-being? Some studies have found that the CTC led to reductions in parental reports of clinical levels of depression and anxiety and in subclinical depressive and anxiety symptoms. Using similar methods, other studies have found no effect on these same outcomes. Importantly, however, the evidence does not point to the CTC worsening psychological well-being. We conclude that the evidence so far is thin, narrow, and mixed, even when our review is expanded to comparable studies on the impact of income support. Alignment of policy objectives with a broader range of measurement approaches will be important in building a more conclusive evidence base.