The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic threatens the health and well-being of families and is particularly consequential for the nation’s 77 million children. But potential policy responses can help address parents’ hardships and caregiving challenges.
The public charge rule’s chilling effects on public benefit receipt in 2018 persisted at similar levels into 2019. This phenomenon has even more alarming implications during the pandemic, in which many immigrant families are vulnerable to acute medical and economic hardship.
A new brief explains how immigrant families’ decisions to stop or avoid public benefit programs were based on limited information, abundant caution, and their desire to avoid jeopardizing any future immigration processes.
A new study reveals state policies restricting abortion access are associated with women’s perceptions of reduced access to both medical and surgical abortions. Women were significantly more likely to perceive access to both surgical and medical abortions as difficult when they lived in states with four or more restrictive abortion policies.
