During the 1990s, the welfare caseload peaked and then declined by about half. The decline occurred simultaneously with a robust economic expansion and a series of major welfare reforms. This paper reconsiders the methods used in the previous studies to explain these changes. The authors...

Although much research has focused on recent increases in annual earnings inequality in the United States, the increases could have come from either of two sources: the distribution of lifetime earnings could have become more unequal or the receipt of lifetime earnings could have become more...

Using data from nationwide and California-specific surveys, the authors provide evidence on the importance of the number of "entries" into the welfare system to explain the decline in welfare caseload during the late 1990s.

The Asset and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old (AHEAD) study shows a large increase in reported total wealth between 1993 and 1995. Such an increase is not found in other US household surveys around that period. This paper examines one source of this difference. The authors find that in...

The central theme of welfare reform is the requirement that welfare recipients engage in work activities. In many states this requirement applies even to mothers whose children are just a few months old. Holding a job increases the costs of breastfeeding, which in turn could reduce the...