As we look toward 2025, we have an important opportunity to promote economic security by advancing unrestricted cash assistance, or a guaranteed income, for young adults and families with children. There is real momentum behind unrestricted cash, as the temporary expansion of the Child Tax Credit in 2021, pandemic-era stimulus checks, and local guaranteed income pilots have demonstrated how no-strings-attached cash can help young people and families flexibly meet their needs, live with dignity, and pursue their aspirations.
As Rachelle, a mother of a five-year-old and child care teacher in North Carolina, told CSSP, “Money is not the answer to everything, but it definitely helps us to figure out ways to make solutions easier to access.”
Why Unrestricted Cash?
All people deserve a foundation of economic security. Cash, with no restrictions or strings attached, gives people the freedom to decide how they can most effectively meet their needs as their circumstance change.
Young adults need unrestricted cash, or a guaranteed income, as they start out in their careers, establish families of their own, explore new opportunities, and take on new responsibilities. Young people are at a critical stage in their lives that can set them on a path to future success and fulfillment. But many young people do not have the foundation of economic security necessary to pursue their goals for themselves and their families, as they are caught in a daily struggle trying to make ends meet. Between the ages of 18 and 24 people’s earnings are typically low, and few young people have had the opportunity to build wealth. But current government programs do not effectively buffer young people against economic hardship. A guaranteed income can help provide young people the foundation of economic security they need, so that they can seize opportunities and chart a path forward.
Unrestricted cash is also critical for families with children. The cost of raising children is high and rising, and parents and caregivers are often left shouldering the bulk of this cost on their own, as the United States invests significantly less in children and families than other wealthy nations. Many jobs do not pay enough to support a family and lack policies that enable parents to combine caregiving with paid work—such as paid sick days, paid parental leave, and flexible or predictable hours. Meanwhile many of the government supports that are available to families lack the flexibility of cash, and come with eligibility restrictions or counterproductive and harmful work requirements or administrative hurdles that in practice exclude many of the families who could use the support the most. Parents are left with impossible choices. Should they take a second job that means missing out on family dinners, or should they spend that precious time nurturing their children but be left worrying whether they will be able to make rent? Unrestricted cash, or a guaranteed income for families with children, can give parents the resources they need to parent in the way they would like to parent, and lean into the critical work they do every day raising the next generation.
The Opportunity Ahead
In recent years, the evidence for unrestricted cash has grown, as study after study of the expanded Child Tax Credit and local guaranteed income pilots has found improvements in economic security and well-being. With consistent, no-strings attached cash payments people are able to buy more food, find stable housing, enroll their children in extracurricular activities, fix broken cars, and spend time with loved ones. When people receive unrestricted cash their financial stress goes down. They report feeling that the regular cash payments “takes the weight off of you” and helped them feel more secure as a parent, “knowing that I provided for my children, they’re not out here wanting for anything.”
Because of the overwhelming success of unrestricted cash, there is growing support from across the political spectrum for expanding cash assistance. Presidential candidate Kamala Harris has endorsed a permanent expansion of the Child Tax Credit, including an unprecedented boost of up to $6,000 per child in the first year of life. Vice Presidential Candidate JD Vance has also spoken of the importance of expanding the CTC, and making it available to more families. Meanwhile there are legislative proposals ready for consideration: Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s American Family Act of 2023 would permanently expand the CTC along the lines of the temporary 2021 expansion, and Reps. Morgan McGarvey and Bonnie Watson Coleman’s Young Adult Tax Credit Act would create a new $500 monthly credit for young adults ages 18-24.
Next year, there is a critical opportunity to create a permanent program of unrestricted cash assistance when Congress takes on major tax legislation. The upcoming tax package is an opportunity to permanently expand the Child Tax Credit, and build support for a future guaranteed income for young adults. Now is the time to listen to parents, caregivers, and young people about what they need from a guaranteed income, so that they can achieve economic security and pursue their goals for themselves, their families, and their communities.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve shared several resources on social media related to our policy priority “Unrestricted Cash: A Lifeline for Young People & Families.” Those resources include:
- Beyond Temporary Relief for Families: Lessons from ARPA’s Investments in Child Care & the Child Tax Credit
- CBS Evening News: Raegen Selden Speaks on the Child Tax Credit
- The Child Tax Credit & Family Economic Security: Findings from the Center for the Study of Social Policy’s Survey of Families with Children
- Designed to Keep You Down: TANF Creates Obstacles for Families Even as it Provides Critical Support
- Let Us Rise: How Parents and Caregivers Would Design a Permanent Child Allowance to Advance Racial and Economic Justice
- The New Neighborhood—How Can We Reduce Child Poverty?: The Challenge with the Child Tax Credit
- A Policy Agenda for a Nation That CARES for Young Adults
- The Racist Roots of Work Requirements: Where Do We Go From Here?
- Standing on Our Principles: How the Child Tax Credit can Promote the Economic Security and Well-Being of Children and Families
- Supporting Young Adults through a Guaranteed Income
- “We Don’t Have that in Mississippi”: How Temporary Expansions of the Child Tax Credit & Child Care Demonstrate the Importance of Federal Investments & Oversight
- What do “Work Requirements” Actually Require? A look at programs that meet families’ basic needs in Montgomery County, Maryland
- Where Do We Go From Here?: How Temporary Investments in the Child Tax Credit & Child Care Impacted North Carolina Families, and the Road Ahead