Exploring the role of other income components beyond public social transfers in keeping childless non-elderly households out of poverty in the United States and cross-nationally
Gabriele Mariani, Centre for Social Policy Herman Deleeck, University of Antwerp
Because several income support measures – in the US more than in other advanced welfare states – are based on means-tested targeting and categorical eligibility, childless non-elderly households are more likely to fall between the cracks of benefits-eligible categories, which raises their prospects of ending in relative poverty. In their 2024 research article, Gornick et al. assessed – with a specific focus on the US case compared to other six high-income countries – how childless non-elderly households fare in terms of poverty rates and poverty reduction via social transfers relative to non-childless ones. Their findings reveal that in the US, minimum income protection is largely insufficient to keep single childless lowwage earning households out of poverty, with close to zero income protection for those out-of-work. Moreover, compared to the other six countries, the US lags largely behind when it comes to the effectiveness of public social transfers in reducing poverty among this group. Considered the relative scarcity of income support measures available to this households group, however, their poverty rate – albeit the highest among the six countries – is not exceedingly higher. This raises the question: how do childless non-elderly households in the US succeed to remain out of poverty despite a social safety net which is largely inadequate for them? Gornick et al. (2024) find that pensions and private transfers reduce poverty among the childless group to a relatively greater extent in the US than in continental Europe. The measurement of these two income components, however, requires specific attention, due to differences in the national pension systems, as well as in the definition of the private transfers variable. The choice of the poverty indicator is also of key importance. Relatively similar poverty rates might indeed hide larger cross-country differences in poverty depth. Private transfers, including interhouseholds cash transfers and other resources pooling strategies, might keep some non-socially excluded childless households out of relative poverty, but, given the meagreness of public income support in the US, the picture could be much bleaker there, compared to other countries, for those that remain poor. Overall, understanding how some childless households cope with their relatively disadvantaged position in the access to welfare benefits, while others don’t, may advance our understanding of poverty among a group which has often been framed as less deserving of public income support and, therefore, relatively less studied in poverty research. This is highly relevant given the increasing numerical relevance of this group among the overall population, including those in poverty, and considering the increasing public attention toward the wider social implications of social exclusion and loneliness among single childless individuals in particular.
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