Children represent the largest indirect beneficiaries of the U.S. social welfare system. Yet, many questions remain about the direct benefits of cash aid to children. The current understanding of the impacts of cash aid in the U.S. is drawn primarily from studies of in-kind benefits, tax...

We examine the effects of an unconditional cash transfer on the economic wellbeing (material hardship, ability to meet needs, money on hand, use of friends and family for assistance, and employment) of families and children with very low incomes. We use a parameterized difference-in-differences...

We provide new evidence that cash transfers following the birth of a first child can have large and long-lasting effects on that child's outcomes. We take advantage of the January 1 birthdate cutoff for U.S. child-related tax benefits, which results in families of otherwise similar children...

I discuss recent books offering differing explanations for persistent U.S. poverty. Desmond (2023) argues that aid to low-income Americans is captured by more powerful market actors. I contextualize this concern as about incidence and consider both policies for changing incidence (by changing...

This papers quantifies the redistributive effects on progressivity, poverty and welfare, that would occur if the monetary benefits currently in place in the Spanish system were to be replaced by a neutral alternative in terms of spending, granting a universal basic income (UBI) to everyone. We...

Inner-city business development is often proposed as a solution to inner-city poverty. However, research evidence suggests that creating new jobs in the inner city is unlikely by itself to significantly increase the employment or earnings of the inner city poor. Public subsidies for inner city...

This paper considers the effect of child care costs on two labor market outcomes for single mothers whether to participate in the labor market and whether to receive welfare. Hourly child care expenditures are estimated for all women in the sample (using data drawn from the 1992 and 1993 panels...

Several recent changes in the Food Stamp Program have been directed toward households without children. Some, including new work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs), were intended to promote self-sufficiency, while others, including easier application and...

Temporary help services (THS) firms are increasing their hiring of disadvantaged individuals and claiming more subsidies for doing so. Do these subsidies-the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) and Welfare-to-Work Tax Credit (WtW)-create incentives that improve employment outcomes for THS...

We propose a new measure of the rate of poverty we call the Supplemental Expenditure Poverty Measure (SEPM) based on expenditure in the Consumer Expenditure survey. It treats household expenditure as a measure of resources available to purchase the minimum bundle necessary to meet basic needs....