Safety Net Use
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Karen Jusko -
Mark Duggan -
Hilary Hoynes
Leaders: Mark Duggan, Hilary Hoynes, Karen Jusko
The Safety Net RG is devoted to monitoring changes in government transfers and anti-poverty programs and assessing whether they are meeting the needs of the poor. The U.S. safety net is undergoing such changes as (a) an ongoing decline in TANF cash benefits, (b) rapid increases in spending on EITC, Medicaid, Disability Insurance, Unemployment Insurance, and SNAP, and (c) a dramatic shift toward spending that favors the “working poor” over the more destitute. The CPI affiliates working within this research group are monitoring these changes, examining their implications for poverty, assessing the effectiveness of key government and nongovernment programs in reducing poverty, and modeling the costs and benefits of possible changes in policy and programs. We’ve provided a sampling here of some of this ongoing research.
Poverty Relief Project: With Kate Weisshaar, Karen Jusko uses the poverty relief ratio to evaluate the effectiveness of anti-poverty programs over time, across states, and across countries. Which state is the least effective in fighting poverty? Has the U.S. become more or less effective over time? These and other questions are answered in our latest State of the Union reports.
Long-run effects of SNAP: Have we underestimated the returns to SNAP by ignoring the long-run effects on children exposed to it in their early childhood? It’s now possible to find out.
California Welfare Laboratory: The poverty rate in California, when measured with the Supplemental Poverty Measure, is the highest in the country. What can be done to bring that rate down? The mission of the California Welfare Laboratory is to make research on California’s welfare programs accessible to all and thus facilitate an informed discussion of what is working and what needs to be improved.
Differential EITC effects: It is often argued that early interventions have especially high payoffs. Are the returns to the EITC indeed larger when it goes to parents with young children?
Disability and poverty: Does the federal government’s disability program reduce labor supply? Although it’s long been difficult to identify a causal effect, Mark Duggan has now found a way.
The effects of TANF: The TANF program is very decentralized and thus takes on dramatically different forms. How can we exploit that variability to find out what’s working?
Featured Examples
Safety Net - CPI Research
| Title | Author | Media | |
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| A Qualitative Census of Rural and Urban Poverty | J. Trent Alexander, Robert Andersen, Peter W. Cookson, Kathryn Edin, Jonathan Fisher, David B. Grusky, Marybeth Mattingly, Charles Varner |
A Qualitative Census of Rural and Urban PovertyAuthor: J. Trent Alexander, Robert Andersen, Peter W. Cookson, Kathryn Edin, Jonathan Fisher, David B. Grusky, Marybeth Mattingly, Charles VarnerPublisher: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Date: 06/2017 If we want to build authentic evidence-based policy, we need a strong descriptive foundation of evidence on the everyday experience of poverty. The National Poverty Study (NPS), which is currently in development, provides this foundation with a new “qualitative census” of the everyday conditions of poverty in rural, suburban, and urban sites. The NPS will allow us to build new evidence-based theories of poverty, evaluate and improve existing place-based antipoverty policies, validate official poverty measures, and assist local communities in improving the safety net for vulnerable populations. |
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| State of the Union 2017: Safety Net | Mark Duggan, Valerie Scimeca |
State of the Union 2017: Safety NetAuthor: Mark Duggan, Valerie ScimecaPublisher: Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality Date: 06/2017 Given that poverty rates are signicantly higher among blacks, Hispanics, and American Indians than in the general population, it is not surprising that their enrollment in federal safety net programs, such as Medicaid and food stamps, is also higher. However, poor blacks and American Indians are significantly less likely than other racial and ethnic groups to enroll in Medicaid, which is the largest federal safety net program. No similar gap exists for enrollment in the food stamp or Supplemental Security Income programs. |
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| Using Tax Policy to Address Economic Need: An Assessment of California’s New State EITC | Christopher Wimer, Marybeth Mattingly, Sara Kimberlin, Jonathan Fisher, Caroline Danielson, Sarah Bohn |
Using Tax Policy to Address Economic Need: An Assessment of California’s New State EITCAuthor: Christopher Wimer, Marybeth Mattingly, Sara Kimberlin, Jonathan Fisher, Caroline Danielson, Sarah BohnPublisher: Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality Date: 12/2016 This policy brief provides estimates of the number of tax filers who qualify for the new California EITC and the amounts they will receive. It does so by modeling the California EITC as if it had been implemented in tax year 2013. We find that an estimated 614,000 tax filers and their family members (1.97 million individuals) could benefit from the credit. We then examine the extent to which such a credit might reduce poverty and narrow poverty gaps among recipients and their family members. An estimated 364,000 of the 2.20 million individuals living in deep poverty (as measured under the California Poverty Measure) are eligible for the state EITC, with an average family benefit of $464. Roughly 1.4 percent of California’s deep poverty population (about 16,000 adults and 15,000 children) would be moved out of deep poverty if they made use of the state credit. Finally, we compare the enacted policy to other potential program expansions in terms of cost, reach, average benefit, and poverty reduction.
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| Child Poverty, the Great Recession, and the Social Safety Net in the United States | Marianne Bitler, Hilary Hoynes, Elira Kuka |
Child Poverty, the Great Recession, and the Social Safety Net in the United StatesAuthor: Marianne Bitler, Hilary Hoynes, Elira KukaPublisher: NBER Date: 09/2016 In this paper, we comprehensively examine the effects of the Great Recession on child poverty, with particular attention to the role of the social safety net in mitigating the adverse effects of shocks to earnings and income. Using a state panel data model and data for 2000 to 2014, we estimate the relationship between the business cycle and child poverty, and we examine how and to what extent the safety net is providing protection to at-risk children. We find compelling evidence that the safety net provides protection; that is, the cyclicality of after-tax-and-transfer child poverty is significantly attenuated relative to the cyclicality of private income poverty. We also find that the protective effect of the safety net is not similar across demographic groups, and that children from more disadvantaged backgrounds, such as those living with non-Hispanic black or Hispanic, single, or particularly immigrant household heads-or immigrant spouses, experience larger poverty cyclicality than non-Hispanic white, married, or native household heads with native spouses. Our findings hold across a host of choices for how to define poverty. These include measures based on absolute thresholds or more relative thresholds. They also hold for measures of resources that include not only cash and near cash transfers net of taxes but also several measures of medical benefits. |
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| State of the Union 2016: Safety Net | Karen Jusko |
State of the Union 2016: Safety NetAuthor: Karen JuskoPublisher: Date: 02/2016 The U.S. safety net provides about half of the income support needed to increase all incomes to the level needed to meet basic needs. Levels of poverty relief are typically higher—and sometimes much higher— in other post-industrial countries. |
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safety net - CPI Affiliates
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Cybelle Fox |
Professor of Sociology |
University of California, Berkeley |
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Edward B. Montgomery |
Dean of the McCourt School of Public Policy; Research Associate, National Bureau for Economic Research; Fellow, National Academy of Public Administration |
Georgetown University |
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Emily Hannum |
Professor of Sociology and Education; Associate Director, Population Studies Center |
Univerisity of Pennsylvania |
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Isabela Mares |
Professor of Political Science; Victoria Schuck Faculty Scholar |
Columbia University |
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Jan O. Jonsson |
Official Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford University |
Oxford University |
Pages
Safety Net - Other Research
| Title | Author | Media | |
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| Knowledge of Future Job Loss and Implications for Unemployment Insurance | Nathaniel Hendren |
Knowledge of Future Job Loss and Implications for Unemployment InsuranceAuthor: Nathaniel HendrenPublisher: American Economic Review Date: 07/2017 This paper studies the implications of individuals' knowledge of future job loss for the existence of an unemployment insurance (UI) market. Learning about job loss leads to consumption decreases and spousal labor supply increases. This suggests existing willingness to pay estimates for UI understate its value. But it yields new estimation methodologies that account for and exploit responses to learning about future job loss. Although the new willingness to pay estimates exceed previous estimates, I estimate much larger frictions imposed by private information. This suggests privately traded UI policies would be too adversely selected to be profitable, at any price. |
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| An Analysis of the Memphis Nurse-Family Partnership Program | James J. Heckman, Margaret L. Holland, Kevin K. Makino, Rodrigo Pinto, Maria Rosales-Rueda |
An Analysis of the Memphis Nurse-Family Partnership ProgramAuthor: James J. Heckman, Margaret L. Holland, Kevin K. Makino, Rodrigo Pinto, Maria Rosales-RuedaPublisher: NBER Date: 07/2017 This paper evaluates a randomized controlled trial of the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) program conducted in Memphis, TN in 1990. NFP offers home visits conducted by nurses for disadvantaged first-time mothers during pregnancy and early childhood. We test NFP treatment effects using permutation-based inference that accounts for the NFP randomization protocol. Our methodology is valid for small samples and corrects for multiple-hypothesis testing. We also analyze the underlying mechanisms generating these treatment effects. We decompose NFP treatment effects into components associated with the intervention-enhanced parenting and early childhood skills. The NFP improves home investments, parenting attitudes and mental health for mothers of infants at age 2. At age 6, the NFP boosts cognitive skills for both genders and socio-emotional skills for females. These treatment effects are explained by program-induced improvements in maternal traits and early-life family investments. At age 12, the treatment effects for males (but not for females) persist in the form of enhanced achievement test scores. Treatment effects are largely explained by enhanced cognitive skills at age 6. Our evidence of pronounced gender differences in response to early childhood interventions contributes to a growing literature on this topic. |
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| Separate and Unequal: The Dimensions and Consequences of Safety Net Decentralization in the U.S. 1994-2014 | Sarah K. Bruch, Marcia K. Meyers, Janet C. Gornick |
Separate and Unequal: The Dimensions and Consequences of Safety Net Decentralization in the U.S. 1994-2014Author: Sarah K. Bruch, Marcia K. Meyers, Janet C. GornickPublisher: Institute for Research on Poverty Date: 08/2016 In this paper, we examine the dimensions and consequences of decentralized social safety netpolicies. We consider the adequacy of benefits and inclusiveness of receipt for eleven federal-stateprograms that constitute the core of safety net provision for working age adults and families: cashassistance, food assistance, health insurance, child support, child care, preschool/early education, unemployment insurance, state income taxes, cash assistance work assistance, disability assistance, andhousing assistance. In the first part of the paper we examine the extent of cross-state inequality in socialprovision. We find substantial variation across states; variation that is consistent with policy design differences in state discretion; and at levels equal to or greater than variation across the European countries that have been recognized as having different welfare regimes. In the second section, we turn to an analysis of change over time (1994 to 2014) examining four dimensions of convergence: degree, location of change, direction of change, and scope. We find both decreases (retrenchment) and increases (expansions) of provision, a handful of cases of convergence (decreasing inequality) and divergence (increasing inequality), and a great deal of synchronous change and persistence in the magnitude of crossstateinequalities. |
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| Immigration Enforcement and the “Chilling Effect” on Latino Medicaid Enrollment | Francisco I. Padraza, Ling Zhu |
Immigration Enforcement and the “Chilling Effect” on Latino Medicaid EnrollmentAuthor: Francisco I. Padraza, Ling ZhuPublisher: Date: 01/2015 Is contemporary interior immigration enforcement generating a “chilling effect” on Medicaiduse among Latinos? In the first section we theorize the “chilling effect” as a subclass of “massfeedback effects,” which we expand to include a narrative of contemporary Latino politics. In the second section we introduce the details of Secure Communities and explain how itfits in the broader development of America’s new immigration enforcement regime. The section after that describes our data, measures and methods. In addition to complimenting existing findings on the “chilling effect” of immigration enforcement, we present analyses that show patterns of heterogenous “chilling effects,” both in terms of nativity and immigrantgeneration, and across race/ethnicity and immigration status. The final section summarizes and concludes with thoughts about future research directions. |
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| The Inverse Equity Hypothesis: Does It Apply to Coverage of Cancer Screening in Middle-Income Countries? | Lee, J. T., Huang, Z., Basu, S., Millett, C. |
The Inverse Equity Hypothesis: Does It Apply to Coverage of Cancer Screening in Middle-Income Countries?Author: Lee, J. T., Huang, Z., Basu, S., Millett, C.Publisher: BMJ Publishing Group Limited Date: 10/2014 It is uncertain whether the inverse equity hypothesis-the idea that new health interventions are initially primarily accessed by the rich, but that inequalities narrow with diffusion to the poor-holds true for cancer screening in low and middle income countries (LMICs).This study examines the relationship between overall coverage and economic inequalities in coverage of cancer screening in four middle-income countries.Secondary analyses of cross-sectional data from the WHO study on Global Ageing and Adult Health in China, Mexico, Russia and South Africa (2007-2010). Three regression-based methods were used to measure economic inequalities: (1) Adjusted OR; (2) Relative Index of Inequality (RII); and (3) Slope Index of Inequality.Coverage for breast cancer screening was 10.5% in South Africa, 19.3% in China, 33.8% in Russia and 43% in Mexico, and coverage for cervical cancer screening was 24% in South Africa, 27.2% in China, 63.7% in Mexico and 81.5% in Russia. Economic inequalities in screening participation were substantially lower or non-existent in countries with higher aggregate coverage, for both breast cancer screening (RII: 14.57 in South Africa, 4.90 in China, 2.01 in Mexico, 1.04 in Russia) and cervical cancer screening (RII: 3.60 in China, 2.47 in South Africa, 1.39 in Mexico, 1.12 in Russia).Economic inequalities in breast and cervical cancer screening are low in LMICs with high screening coverage. These findings are consistent with the inverse equity hypothesis and indicate that high levels of equity in cancer screening are feasible even in countries with high income inequality.
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Safety Net - Multimedia
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