This paper evaluates the effects of the earned income tax credit (EITC) on poor families’ earnings. Exploiting state-level variation in EITCs, we find that the EITC helps families rise above poverty-level earnings, primarily by inducing labor market entry in families that initially do not have...

Features of the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program and the social security retirement system interact to create incentives for prospective participants in the aged portion of SSI to withdraw from the labor force and make an early old age insurance (OAI) claim under social security. This...