Child poverty is firmly on the policy agenda in many OECD countries. One of the main issues in the debate is the appropriate balance between the so-called “benefits strategy” (increasing the adequacy of benefits for low-income families with children) and the so-called “work strategy” (promoting policies to increase employment among poor families). The need to choose between these two apparent alternatives is sometimes seen as a consequence of an unavoidable trade-off between adequacy of benefits, work incentives and the costs of assistance...