Christopher Wimer

Biographic Data

ID209393
NAMEChristopher Wimer
GIVEN NAMESChristopher
FAMILY NAMEWimer
SIGNATUREWIMER C
AFFILIATIONSColumbia University
ORCID0000-0002-9688-0449
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS44
TOTAL CITATIONS461
AUTHOR COUNT44
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR2006
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX10

  • The role of government benefits in reducing housing cost burdens, 2009 – 2022

    Danielle Wilson, Whitney Airgood-Obrycki et al.ARTICLEHousing Studies2026References: 17

    Measures of housing cost burden based solely on pretax cash income cannot capture how in-kind benefits supplement or expenses exhaust resources available for housing. We thus apply a broader definition of income, following the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), which considers cash income, in-kind benefits, taxes, and expenses, to measure housing burden in the United States. Using the American Community Survey, we estimate cost burdens among ren…

  • Poverty at Age 30 Across Birth Cohorts

    Open AccessSophie Collyer, Yajun Jia et al.ARTICLEPopulation Research and Policy…2025References: 18

  • The Benefits and Costs of Paid Parental Leave in the United States

    Buyi Wang, Meredith Slopen et al.ARTICLESocial Service Review2025References: 7

  • When money and mental health problems pile up

    Open AccessOscar Jiménez-Solomon, Irwin Garfinkel et al.ARTICLESSM - Population Health2024

    Individual earnings, which are labor market indicators, may be stronger social determinants of mental health than family income. However, important differences in social causation and social drift effects exist across groups by age, education, gender, and racial/ethnic identities. Future research should examine the types of policies that may buffer the mental health impact of negative income shocks and the declines in income associated with worse…

  • Fostering Financial and Family Well-Being

    Vicki Lens, Lily Bushman-Copp et al.ARTICLEJournal of Poverty2024References: 5

  • Safety Net Spending on Children and the Sources of Household Income Across U.S. States, 1997–2016

    Open AccessMargot I Jackson, Christopher Wimer et al.ARTICLEDemography2024References: 39

    High levels of poverty and economic precarity in the United States relative to other countries have led to academic and policy debates about whether welfare state investments accomplish what they are intended to. Although social safety net spending clearly has antipoverty effects at the national level, there is scant evidence on the “resource pathway” presumed to underlie the effects of the local welfare state on families with children. Which typ…

  • Transitioning to adulthood

    Open AccessChristal Hamilton, Z Parolin et al.ARTICLESocial Science Research2024References: 18

    More young adults in the United States are studying beyond high school and working full-time than in the past, yet young adults continue to have high poverty rates as they transition to adulthood. This study uses longitudinal data on two cohorts of young adults from the 1979 and 1997 National Longitudinal Study of Youth to assess whether conventional benchmarks associated with economic success-gaining an education, finding stable employment, and …

  • Intra-year employment instability and economic well-being among urban households

    Open AccessJulie Y Cai, Yixia Cai et al.ARTICLEChildren and Youth Services Review2023Cited by: 2References: 31

  • Experiences of Poverty Around the Time of a Birth

    Open AccessChristal Hamilton, Laurel Sariscsany et al.ARTICLEDemography2023Cited by: 2References: 21

    While research highlights that, on average, women's income and labor force participation fall around the time of a birth, little is known about how women's experiences of poverty around childbirth vary by birth parity or race and ethnicity. Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation and the Supplemental Poverty Measure (a comprehensive measure of poverty), this research note examines the poverty rate of mothers overall and by …

  • The Effects of Child Poverty Reductions on Child Protective Services Involvement

    Open AccessJessica Pac, Sophie Collyer et al.ARTICLESocial Service Review2023Cited by: 9References: 4

    In this study, we use microsimulation methods to estimate the reduction in child protective services (CPS) involvement resulting from implementation of three of the policy packages from a recent National Academy of Sciences proposal to reduce child poverty, including the introduction of a child allowance and expansions to the earned income tax credit, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and the federal minimum wage. We find that the po…

  • Inequality Below the Poverty Line since 1967

    Open AccessZ Parolin, M Desmond et al.ARTICLEAmerican Sociological Review2023Cited by: 10References: 48

    Since the War on Poverty in the 1960s, the U.S. social safety net has shifted away from direct cash assistance for the lowest-income households and toward tax-based transfers targeted at working families with children. Previous research has assessed this shift by evaluating its effect on the national poverty rate. Doing so, however, overlooks how it may also have led to increased inequality among low-income households. We apply a decomposition fr…

  • The Child Tax Credit and Family Well-Being

    Open AccessSophie Collyer, Megan Curran et al.ARTICLEThe Annals of the American…2023Cited by: 8References: 27

    The Child Tax Credit (CTC) has become an increasingly important element of the U.S. safety net. We discuss the structure of the CTC and its effects on childhood poverty and other indicators of well-being during its three distinct phases: prior to the 2021 American Rescue Plan (ARP) expansion, during the expansion, and after the expansion's expiration. We also examine recent efforts to establish state-level CTCs. We show that, in 2020, roughly one…

  • Changing Work, Changing Families, and Public Policies Toward Low-Income Families

    Open AccessMarcia J Carlson, Christopher Wimer et al.ARTICLERSF The Russell Sage Foundation…2022Cited by: 1References: 36

    The twenty-first century has seen major changes in both the nature of work and the nature of families in the United States—even before the COVID-19 pandemic upended nearly every aspect of economic and social life beginning in the spring of 2020. Many ongoing, longer-term changes in work and family

  • The Benefits and Costs of a Child Allowance

    Open AccessIrwin Garfinkel, Laurel Sariscsany et al.ARTICLEJournal of Benefit-Cost Analysis2022Cited by: 3References: 9

    This article conducts a benefit-cost analysis of a child allowance. Through a systematic literature review of the highest quality evidence on the causal effects of cash and near-cash transfers, this article produces core estimates on the benefits and costs per child and per adult of increasing household income by $1000, which can be used for any cash or near-cash program that increases household income. We then apply these estimates to three chil…

  • Estimating Monthly Poverty Rates in the United States

    Open AccessZ Parolin, Megan Curran et al.ARTICLEJournal of Policy Analysis and…2022Cited by: 10References: 5

    Official poverty estimates for the United States are presented annually, based on a family unit's annual resources, and reported with a considerable lag. This study introduces a framework to produce monthly estimates of the Supplemental Poverty Measure and official poverty measure, based on a family unit's monthly income, and with a two‐week lag. We argue that a shorter accounting period and more timely estimates of poverty better account for int…

  • Exposure to Childhood Poverty and Racial Differences in Economic Opportunity in Young Adulthood

    Open AccessZ Parolin, Jordan Matsudaira et al.ARTICLEDemography2022Cited by: 3References: 61

    Young adults in the United States, especially young Black adults, experience high poverty rates relative to other age groups. Prior research has largely attributed racial disparities in young adult poverty to differential attainment of benchmarks related to education, employment, and family formation. This study investigates that mechanism alongside racial differences in childhood poverty exposure. Analyses of Panel Study of Income Dynamics data …

  • Paying for Childcare to Work? Evaluating the Role of Policy in Affordable Care and Child Poverty

    Robert Paul Hartley, Marybeth J Mattingly et al.ARTICLESocial Service Review2022Cited by: 3References: 3

    Unless parents have a family member at home who can provide care, most will need childcare to work and achieve career mobility. Existing policies to help families with child-care costs in the United States include means-tested subsidies and nonrefundable tax credits. Many low-income families are eligible for the means-tested benefits, yet receipt rates are low. These families are generally excluded from the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CD…

  • The Effects of the 2021 Monthly Child Tax Credit on Child and Family Well-Being

    Open AccessSophie Collyer, Jill Gandhi et al.ARTICLESocius Sociological Research for…2022Cited by: 6References: 62

    The temporary monthly child tax credit implemented in 2021 had the potential to affect many aspects of child and family well-being, including poverty, hardship, use of food pantries, spending on child-related items, and parents' mental health and employment. The authors assess these effects using data from two longitudinal studies of well-being in New York City. They find that the monthly child tax credit led to significant declines in the risk f…

  • Early impacts of Room to Grow

    Open AccessChristopher Wimer, M Antònia Martí et al.ARTICLEChildren and Youth Services Review2021Cited by: 1References: 65

    Children experiencing poverty or low incomes fare worse than their more advantaged peers on a host of developmental and educational outcomes. Interventions have focused on strengthening parenting in families with young children, when supports appear to be most critical. But most parenting programs for low-income families fail to address parents' economic needs, which almost always take precedence relative to broader educational or developmental g…

  • Trends in the Economic Wellbeing of Unmarried-Parent Families with Children

    Open AccessChristopher Wimer, Liana Fox et al.ARTICLEPopulation Research and Policy…2021Cited by: 3References: 33

  • Reducing poverty among children

    Open AccessJessica Pac, Irwin Garfinkel et al.ARTICLEChildren and Youth Services Review2020Cited by: 4References: 30

  • The Direct Effect of Taxes and Transfers on Changes in the U.S. Income Distribution, 1967–2015

    Open AccessChristopher Wimer, Z Parolin et al.ARTICLEDemography2020Cited by: 12References: 26

    Scholars have increasingly drawn attention to rising levels of income inequality in the United States. However, prior studies have provided an incomplete account of how changes to specific transfer programs have contributed to changes in income growth across the distribution. Our study decomposes the direct effects of tax and transfer programs on changes in the household income distribution from 1967 to 2015. We show that despite a rising Gini co…

  • Young adult poverty in historical perspective

    Open AccessChristopher Wimer, Jaehyun Nam et al.ARTICLESocial Science Research2020Cited by: 5References: 19

  • Forgoing Food Assistance out of Fear

    Open AccessJennifer Laird, Isaac Santelli et al.ARTICLESocius Sociological Research for…2019References: 2

    Public charge, a term used by immigration officials for over 100 years, refers to a person who relies on public assistance at the government’s expense. Immigrants who are deemed at high risk of becoming a public charge can be denied green cards; those outside of the United States can be denied entry. Current public charge policy largely applies to cash benefits. The Department of Homeland Security has proposed a regulation that will allow officia…

  • A Renter’s Tax Credit to Curtail the Affordable Housing Crisis

    Open AccessSara Kimberlin, Laura Tach et al.ARTICLERSF The Russell Sage Foundation…2018Cited by: 1References: 7

    Sara Kimberlin, Laura Tach, Christopher Wimer, A Renter's Tax Credit to Curtail the Affordable Housing Crisis, RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Vol. 4, No. 2, Anti-Poverty Policy Initiatives for the United States (February 2018), pp. 131-160