Economic research on the safety net has evolved significantly over time, moving away from a near exclusive focus on the negative incentive effects of means-tested assistance on employment, earnings, marriage and fertility to include examination of the potential positive benefits of such programs...

Beginning with the 1996 federal welfare reform law many of the central safety net programs in the U.S. eliminated eligibility for legal immigrants, who had been previously eligible on the same terms as citizens. These dramatic cutbacks affected eligibility not only for cash welfare assistance...

The COVID-19 crisis has led to spiking unemployment rates with disproportionate impacts on low-income families. School and child-care center closures have also meant lost free- and reduced-price school meals. Food prices have increased sharply leading to reduced purchasing power for families'...

We use novel, large-scale data on 43 million Americans from the 2000 Census and the 2001 to 2013 American Communities Survey linked to the Social Security Administration's NUMIDENT to study how a policy-driven increase in economic resources for families affects children's long-term outcomes....

The stated goals of welfare reform are to increase work, reduce dependency on welfare, reduce births outside marriage, and to increase the formation of two parent families. However, welfare reform may also have indirect impacts on health. We provide a comprehensive review of the literature on...

In this paper, we examine what groups of children are served by core childhood social-safety net programs--including Medicaid, EITC, CTC, SNAP, and AFDC/TANF--and how that's changed over time. We find that virtually all gains in spending on the social safety net for children since 1990 have gone...