Miranda Perry Fleischer (San Diego) is presenting “Equality of Opportunity and the Case for a Universal Child Allowance” at the University of Illinois Faculty Lecture Series today. The paper is also forthcoming in the Southern California Law Review and available on SSRN here. Here is the abstract:

The widespread popularity of equal opportunity ideals fuels strong public support for helping low-income children despite fierce debate over aid to adults. Yet key features of many current child benefit programs undermine that ideal, in part because policymakers muddy the waters with additional aims when crafting them. Programs for children get tangled up in disputes over aid to adults, undermining the goal of giving all children a fair shot at success. This Article untangles that knot by explicitly centering the child as the locus of our concern. Building on equal opportunity theory, it proposes a Universal Child Allowance (UCA) that provides unconditional, no-strings-attached cash grants to all children. Discarding work requirements means that the neediest children are no longer excluded, incorrectly deemed “at fault” for their plight; unrestricted cash allows parents to decide what their children need most. Notably, evidence from existing programs and past experiments suggests parents spend extra cash in ways that benefit their children and that they will not drop out of the labor force altogether or “blow” a UCA on themselves.

At a time of heated polarization, the time is right to explore a UCA. Focusing on children avoids disputes that plague universal basic income proposals and reflects the renewed political focus on opportunities instead of outcomes. This comprehensive analysis of a UCA—the first in the law review literature—complements public policy work that advocates for such a benefit but does not address key design questions. Further, it contributes to scholarship on the tax and transfer system, poverty, and welfare by advancing our understanding of the relationship between a benefit program’s normative goals and structural design choices. And for both advocates and opponents of unconditional cash transfers, it offers a nuanced exploration of the debate surrounding welfare reform that promises a potential resolution of the enduring stalemate over restrictions on government aid.