Event Summary: First Focus Children’s Budget Summit

Editor’s note: This post was authored by Calum Montell-Boyd, a summer intern with the Asset Building Program. Calum is working toward his undergraduate degree in History and Politics at Oxford University in the UK.

On Wednesday, First Focus hosted the Children’s Budget Summit 2013, sponsored by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray. The event marked the release of the Children’s Budget, which highlights the declining federal investment in children at a time when almost one in four is growing up in poverty.

First Focus President Bruce Lesley made the case for prioritizing the nation’s children even against the backdrop of budget pressures, which have already produced a 16% drop in spending on children over the last three years. As spending continues to fall, one saddening result is that Head Start “lotteries” around the country have been kicking many low-income children out of preschool by drawing names at random. As noted in the report, this failure to invest in children is “one of the most costly mistakes a society can make.” In research funded by First Focus, Jane Waldfogel of Columbia University underlines the importance of the issue to society as a whole. If we fail to protect children from poverty, she writes, we will be hit with “heavy social and economic costs” as incarceration rates and joblessness increase for young people. By failing to protect children from poverty today, the country may be putting its future at risk.

To combat this risk, the Children’s Budget highlights spending on children across over 180 programs, ranging from CHIP to SNAP, to help policymakers focus on the most effective ways to invest. The report highlights some concerning trends, such as the fact that only one federal dollar is spent on children for every seven spent on seniors. However, while the event highlighted many challenging issues, it also served as a forum to discuss innovative strategies to move forward. After Lesley, former Delaware Governor and Congressman Mike Castle spoke to highlight the “multiplier effect” which makes early childhood investment so effective, and touched upon the political challenges which policy solutions might face. Roberto Rodriguez, a special assistant on education to President Obama, also made an appearance representing the White House, and was able to point to the administration’s commitment to “cradle to career” solutions. He was especially keen on emphasizing the President’s early education initiatives, which were introduced in the White House’s budget proposals.

One theme which stood out is that, whilst child poverty can seem like an impossible problem, other developed countries have developed strong approaches to the issue. In particular, Lesley highlighted the UK experience of setting and then meeting the dramatic target of cutting child poverty in half. Since 1998, the UK has cut its child poverty rate from almost 30% down to a low of just 11%, whilst the US rate has remained fairly stagnant, and in fact has risen slightly to 23%. As Lesley pointed out, the UK outcome was achieved by an effective combination of funding for education, targeted tax credits, and longer term investments like the Child Trust Fund savings account. US policymakers may have good reason to ask why the same can’t happen here.

With interest on the national debt set to eclipse spending on children by 2020, the First Focus Children’s Budget is a helpful reminder of what budget priorities ought to be. As Governor Castle pointed out, when we find ways to invest in children, “our economy is boosted, our country is boosted, and, frankly, it pays off.”

Check out the First Focus’s 2013 Children’s Budget here.