Children and Family Security

By Thomas J . Woofter, Jr.* T H E CONCENTRATION OF children in families with low incomes was discussed in a previous article. Some of this analysis of the composition and income of nonfarm families receiving wages or salaries only is recapitulated in table 1. I t was pointed out that nearly half of the children (under 18 years of age) were in the one-seventh of the families which had three or more children apiece; that more than two-thirds of the children were in families in the lower half of the i n come distribution; and that geographic variations in wage levels and family sizes create areas of especially pronounced disadvantage. The present article explores the problem of Judging the adequacy both of private incomes and of incomes derived from social insurance benefits and public assistance payments, particularly those benefits and payments which affect the largest numbers of families with children. I n the first article i t was demonstrated that i t is necessary to reduce total family income to a modified per capita or unit basis in order to compare families of varying compositions. The method of reduction used was to allocate a value of one unit to adults and one-half unit to children in order to calculate the number of family units in the family. By this method *Director of Research, Federal Security Agency. 1 "Children and Family Income," Social Security Bulletin, Vol. 8, No. 1 (January 1945), pp. 4-9. This analysis, based on the census of 1940, covered the urban and rural nonfarm families receiving income in 1939 from wages or salaries only—42 percent of all families. Family income was reduced to un i t (modified per capita) income by dividing it by family uni ts which value adults as one uni t and children as one-half. Full definitions of terms and categories are given in the technical note of the article cited above. i t appeared that the income per unit of families without children was more than twice the unit income of the families with three or more children, which included nearly half the children. The same device is used in this article to reduce incomes which support families of varying sizes and the costs of fixed budgets to a comparable basis. The family unit incomes cited are, therefore, to be interpreted as income per adult person or per adult equivalent.