Threading the Needle: What the 2024 Family Benefits Report Card Reveals About Families, Work, & Policy
- On Key Strategies
- Oct 15
- 2 min read
The Niskanen Center’s Family Benefits in America 2024 Report Card, released just last week and authored by Josh McCabe, should be required reading for anyone who cares about how public policy affects families’ real lives.
It’s the rare kind of policy report that doesn’t just compile data—it tells a story about how the rules we’ve built can quietly punish parents for doing the very things we claim to value: working hard, supporting their children, and building stability.
Across eleven states, the report shows how refundable tax credits and social-assistance programs interact as families climb the income ladder. The numbers are stark. For many, the transition from low-income to middle-income work triggers effective tax rates so high that every extra dollar earned can mean losing nearly as much in benefits.
These “just-above-poverty traps” are the modern face of an old problem—one that undermines work, family formation, and upward mobility alike.
As someone who has spent much of my career in and around policymaking, I find this framing deeply important. Too often, we debate family policy in moral absolutes—talking about who deserves what—while ignoring the architecture of incentives that shape daily choices. McCabe’s analysis shows that the real question isn’t whether we help families, but how well our systems reward the effort to do better.
What’s especially valuable about this report is its clarity. It doesn’t drown readers in formulas; it uses them to illuminate something profoundly human. A parent working to earn just a little more shouldn’t find herself worse off because of how programs phase out or because tax credits vanish the moment she gets ahead. Policy should build bridges between assistance and independence—not cliffs.
That message ought to resonate across ideological lines. For conservatives, it reinforces the principle that work and family responsibility deserve to be rewarded, not penalized. For progressives, it underscores the need for a safety net that genuinely supports mobility. For everyone, it’s a reminder that early childhood well-being and economic stability are inseparable.
To me, the Niskanen report doesn’t call for more partisanship; it calls for precision. It invites policymakers to look honestly at how benefit design affects behavior and to fix the mechanics—not just the messaging—of family policy. That kind of evidence-based pragmatism is exactly what’s been missing in many statehouse debates, including here in Ohio.
Josh McCabe and his colleagues have provided an invaluable service by translating the abstract into the actionable. Their work gives us a clearer picture of where families fall through the cracks and why modest reforms—like smoothing benefit cliffs or expanding refundable credits—could make a world of difference.
Good research doesn’t just describe a problem; it clarifies what fairness ought to look like.
The challenge now is to ensure this kind of analysis informs the next generation of family policy—one that truly aligns with our values of work, responsibility, and opportunity for every child.
If you haven’t yet, I encourage you to read the full report here. It’s the kind of grounded, non-ideological research that deserves a place at the center of our national conversation about families and the economy.