Children and Family Income

* Director of Research, Federal Security Agency. BECAUSE CHILDREN ARE very unevenly distributed among families, their opportunities for development are very unequal. This article concerns the maldistribution of children and income in nonfarm families with income from wages or salaries only.1 Nearly half these children are in the oneseventh of the families which have three or more children, and the other half are in about one-third of the families which have one or two children. Almost half the families have no children (table 1, chart 1). On a comparable unit basis, income of families without children (half the families) averages more than twice that of families with three or more children (including half the children). Stated another way: With the same total family income, the family without children can either maintain twice as high a level of living as that with three or more children or can accumulate savings. In fact, owing to the association of low incomes and high birth rate, the average total family income of childless families is higher than that of families with three or more children even before dividing by family units. Inadequacy of income to supply the needs for a satisfactory level of living is an element in a very wide range of problems and a consideration in determining numerous social policies. The family allowances adopted or proposed in many countries are designed to lessen the economic handicaps of families with children. These considerations apply to the determination of wage rates, one school of thought going so far as to advocate a "family wage" adjusted to family needs rather than to productivity. Similar problems are involved in considering the adequacy of survivor benefits under the Social Security Act, prevailing scales of assistance grants, and the question whether unemployment benefits should be graduated upward with family size. Such considerations also have played a major part in determining the scale of allowances for dependents of men in the armed forces and of compensation to families of men killed or disabled in military service, and in appraising the effects of exemptions from income taxes because of dependents. Analysis of this character also demonstrates the need for maintaining widely available tax-supported services in public health and education to equalize the opportunities of families with children.