Targeted allowances for children aged 3–7 and 8–17: accessibility, effectiveness and lessons for unified benefit

Abstract

Families with children can receive monthly payments of a substantial amount (from 50% to 100% of the child’s subsistence minimum). In January 2023, a unified benefit for children was introduced, extending to all categories of the child population the rules of monthly payments provided to low-income families with children aged 3–7 and 8–17. Based on 5 waves of telephone surveys conducted by RANEPA in the period from October 2021 to November 2022, as well as an analysis of comments from Internet sources, the article analyzes the risk of poverty for families with children from 3 to 17 years of age, accessibility of social support, coverage and effectiveness of monthly payments for children aged 3–17. It is shown that households with children aged 3–17 have 1.5 times higher risk of poverty that rises with an increase in the number of children, as well as in the presence of the unemployed, and living in rural areas. By the end of 2022, more than 20% of households with children of this age were covered by payments in question, among families with 3 and more children — 47%. At the same time, less than half of poor households with children aged 3–17 are covered by these payments. Due to provision of payments, the share of poor households decreased in November 2022 by 1.18 times. Several factors remain, which lead to significant exclusion errors that reduces the impact of the monthly payments on poverty. When switching to the unified benefit for children from 0 to 17 years of age, it is important to take into account the experience of providing support for children aged 3–7 and 8–17 in order to make timely adjustments that will increase the coverage of needy families and raise the impact of the benefit on poverty.