Children with greater access to economic resources before age five experience an increase of 6% of a standard deviation (SD) in their adult human capital, 3% of a SD in their adult self-sufficiency, 8% of a SD in quality of their adult neighborhoods, 0.4% increase in longevity, and 0.5% decrease in likelihood of incarceration.
Data covers 43 million Americans from the 2000 Census, and the 2001 to 2013 American Communities Survey. Results obtained using variation from the county-level roll-out of Food Stamps between 1961 and 1975.
empirical