earnings, and making dollars and sense. “Gaps in knowledge and ability between disadvantage children and their more advantaged peers open up long before kindergarten, tend to persist throughout life, and are difficult and costly to close” (Heckman). If society takes a proactive approach to closing these gaps early on by providing investments in quality early childhood programs it will be more effective and economically efficient then trying to close the gap later on.
IV. Policy Alternatives
The Smart Start for America’s Children Act is a targeted policy focusing on improving access to and quality early childhood education for children 200 percent below the poverty line. An alternative to this approach would be a universal prekindergarten policy. …show more content…
Projected Outcomes
In Lynch’s study, targeted high-quality prekindergarten programs and universal prekindergarten programs are compared and governmental costs and benefits of both publicly funded prekindergarten programs, measured as year-by-year expenditures, budget savings, and revenue impacts, are estimated from program implementation in 2007 through the year 2050.
According to Lynch’s study, estimates that providing a voluntary, high-quality, publicly funded, targeted prekindergarten education program serving the poorest 25% of three- and four-year-old children would generate rapidly growing annual benefits that would surpass the more slowly growing annual costs of the program within six years. In the year 2050, the annual budgetary, earnings, and crime benefits would total $315 billion: $83 billion in government budget benefits, $156 billion in increased compensation of workers, and $77 billion in reduced costs to individuals from less crime and child abuse. These annual benefits would exceed the costs of the program in that year by a ratio of 12.1 to 1 (see Table 1) (Lynch …show more content…
That is, starting the ninth year and every year there-after, annual government budget benefits due to the program would outweigh annual government costs of the program. Within 44 years, the offsetting budget benefits alone would total $83 billion, more than three times the costs of the program. Thus, by 2050, every tax dollar spent on the program would be offset by $3.18 in budget savings and governments collectively would be experiencing $57 billion in surpluses due to the prekindergarten investment (Table 2) (Lynch
IV. Policy Alternatives
The Smart Start for America’s Children Act is a targeted policy focusing on improving access to and quality early childhood education for children 200 percent below the poverty line. An alternative to this approach would be a universal prekindergarten policy. …show more content…
Projected Outcomes
In Lynch’s study, targeted high-quality prekindergarten programs and universal prekindergarten programs are compared and governmental costs and benefits of both publicly funded prekindergarten programs, measured as year-by-year expenditures, budget savings, and revenue impacts, are estimated from program implementation in 2007 through the year 2050.
According to Lynch’s study, estimates that providing a voluntary, high-quality, publicly funded, targeted prekindergarten education program serving the poorest 25% of three- and four-year-old children would generate rapidly growing annual benefits that would surpass the more slowly growing annual costs of the program within six years. In the year 2050, the annual budgetary, earnings, and crime benefits would total $315 billion: $83 billion in government budget benefits, $156 billion in increased compensation of workers, and $77 billion in reduced costs to individuals from less crime and child abuse. These annual benefits would exceed the costs of the program in that year by a ratio of 12.1 to 1 (see Table 1) (Lynch …show more content…
That is, starting the ninth year and every year there-after, annual government budget benefits due to the program would outweigh annual government costs of the program. Within 44 years, the offsetting budget benefits alone would total $83 billion, more than three times the costs of the program. Thus, by 2050, every tax dollar spent on the program would be offset by $3.18 in budget savings and governments collectively would be experiencing $57 billion in surpluses due to the prekindergarten investment (Table 2) (Lynch