Despite established links among persistent unemployment, low wages, and children’s economic well-being, social scientists have yet to document how variability in work hours is linked to child poverty. Our knowledge of the safety net’s heterogeneous responses to work-hour instability is also limited. This is of critical importance for scholars and policymakers. Using nationally representative data collected every 4 months, this paper examines how intra-year work-hour volatility is related to child poverty, measured through both the official poverty measure (OPM) and the supplemental poverty measure (SPM). It further assesses varying degrees of buffering effects of cash, in-kind benefits, and tax transfers on income in the context of work-hour volatility. Results indicate that more than one in four households (26%) facing the greatest volatility lived under the poverty line. Black and Hispanic children, as well as those living with unpartnered single mothers, faced substantially higher variability in household market hours worked. Hispanic children experienced not only greater volatility in their caregivers’ work hours but also higher poverty level, even after taking government programs into account. In-kind benefits are more effective in buffering household income declines resulting from unstable work hours, followed by tax transfers and cash benefits. The effectiveness of near-cash benefits is particularly salient among Black children and children of single mothers. These results provide new evidence to inform policy discussions surrounding the best ways to help socioeconomically disadvantaged families to retain benefits and smooth their income in the face of frequent variation in work hours and, thus, earnings.

中文翻译：

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工作时间波动和儿童贫困：安全网计划的潜在缓解作用

尽管持续失业、低工资和儿童经济福祉之间存在联系，但社会科学家尚未证明工作时间的变化与儿童贫困有何关联。我们对安全网对工作时间不稳定的不同反应的了解也很有限。这对于学者和政策制定者来说至关重要。本文利用每 4 个月收集一次的全国代表性数据，研究了年内工作时间波动与儿童贫困的关系，通过官方贫困衡量标准 (OPM) 和补充贫困衡量标准 (SPM) 进行衡量。它还进一步评估了工作时间波动背景下现金、实物福利和税收转移对收入的不同程度的缓冲影响。结果表明，超过四分之一（26%）的面临最大波动的家庭生活在贫困线以下。黑人和西班牙裔儿童，以及那些与没有伴侣的单亲母亲生活在一起的儿童，在家庭市场工作时间方面面临着更高的波动性。即使考虑到政府计划，拉美裔儿童不仅看护者的工作时间波动更大，而且贫困程度也更高。实物福利对于缓冲工作时间不稳定造成的家庭收入下降更为有效，其次是税收转移和现金福利。近现金福利的有效性在黑人儿童和单亲母亲的孩子中尤为突出。