Is the whole greater than the sum of the parts? Interaction effects of three non-income-tested transfers for families with children

If the government sponsored programs that offered a refundable tax credit for children, national health insurance, and an assured child support benefit to all families Vith children-poor families as well as nonpoor families-what would happen to poverty and welfare dependency? Using data from the 1987 Survey of Income and Program Participation, the authors simulate the effects of three such programs operating on their own and of all three acting in concert. They find that the effects of the programs interacting with one another would be much larger than the sum of the effects produced by each program alone. As a result of interaction effects, poverty rates drop by 43 percent rather than only 34 percent, and AFDC caseloads shrink by 22 percent instead of only 2 percent. The implication for social work is that multifaceted universal programs are an especially effective means to combat poverty and welfare dependence.