Im Gefolge der Finanzmarkt- und Wirtschaftskrise hat sich in den USA die Arbeitsmarktlage in einem Ausmaß verschlechtert, das im amerikanischen Sozialsystem wegen der stärkeren Eigenverantwortung nicht vorgesehen ist. Um die krisenbedingten Einkommenslücken zu verringern, hat der Kongress im...

Radical employment, household structure and stability transformations have created new tensions on the welfare state front, whose social programs were constructed in an era with a wholly different risk profile. Rowntree's poverty cycle clearly exemplifies the postwar picture of an exceptional...

The goal of this project is to explore possible linkages between social policy mix and outcomes for young children (i.e., aged 0 to 11 years) in Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, the UK and the US. Of course, social policy is obviously not the only potential determinant of children's well-being....

Three decades ago, Canada and the United States shared almost identical relative poverty and inequality levels. Yet despite experiencing similar macro-level social and economic transformations from 1974 to 1994 , the two nations have experienced diametrically opposite trends in relative...

Comparative research of poverty, income inequality and the effectiveness of income transfer systems has flourished during the last two decades, largely owing to the contribution of the Luxembourg Income Study project. So far, however, the majority of comparative analyses have been based on a...

We analyze the impact of the state on the incidence of poverty in the working-age population of 14 advanced capitalist democracies between 1970 and 1997 using an unbalanced panel design. We utilize poverty measures based on micro-level data from the Luxembourg Income Study in conjunction with...

The primary purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the papers within the economics literature that have examined the questions of immigrant welfare use and the responsiveness of immigrants to the incentives created by welfare systems. While our focus is largely on papers looking at the...

Child care subsidies are an important part of federal and state efforts to move welfare recipients into employment. One of the criticisms of the current subsidy system, however, is that it overemphasizes work and does little to encourage parents to purchase high-quality child care. Consequently,...

In this paper, I first summarize how the US Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) operates and describe the characteristics of recipients. I then discuss empirical work on the effects of the EITC on poverty and income distribution, and its effects on labor supply. Next, I discuss a few policy concerns...

The reform of the cash-based welfare program for single mothers in the US which occurred in the 1990s was the most important since its inception in 1935. The reforms imposed credible and enforceable work requirements into the program for the first time, as well as establishing time limits on...