Summary

In 2020, round two million grandparents had been accountable for the fundamental wants of their grandchildren, with grandparent care concentrated in traditionally deprived communities.  Regardless of being significantly susceptible to monetary insecurity, most grandparents are ineligible for formal assist – akin to subsidies for foster dad and mom, housing help, and Social Safety dependent youngster advantages – as a result of they elevate their grandchildren exterior of the foster care system.  Utilizing the Well being and Retirement Research and American Neighborhood Survey,this examine paperwork how grandparent caregivers differ from typical grandparents by way of money and time spent on grandchildren, demographic traits, and financial sources.  It then evaluates how their funds would enhance if eligibility for youngster advantages had been aligned with the extra lenient tax standards for claiming a dependent grandchild.

The paper discovered that:

• Grandparent care is concentrated amongst single-female, Black, and Hispanic households.
• Though grandparent caregivers have extra accountability than typical grandparents, they’ve virtually no private financial savings.
• Round half of grandparent caregivers have claimed Social Safety, and so would qualify for youngster advantages if the coverage had been modified.
• For these households, substitute charges would improve by 16 proportion factors on common, with Black and Hispanic caregivers experiencing the best enchancment.

The coverage implications are:

• Increasing eligibility for dependent youngster advantages could possibly be a great tool for policymakers to cut back the monetary pressure of caregiving.
• Specifically, youngster advantages would attain essentially the most susceptible households who don’t file taxes.