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...

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...

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is a widely used program. Previous research shows that WIC improves birth outcomes, but evidence about impacts on children and families is limited. We use a regression discontinuity leveraging an age five when...