From 2001 to 2008, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded the Economic Research Initiative on the Uninsured (ERIU), housed at the University of Michigan. The goals of ERIU were to increase, diversify, and improve the quality and quantity of economics research on the uninsured, and to...

I use data from the 2006 Health and Retirement Study to analyze the determinants of material hardship among individuals ages 65 and older. Ten percent of the elderly report hardship – defined here as cutting back on food or medications because of cost – in 2006. Although hardship is more...

Employer health insurance mandates form the basis of many health care reform proposals. Proponents make the case that they will increase insurance, while opponents raise the concern that low-wage workers will see offsetting reductions in their wages and that in the presence of minimum wage laws...

We use data from the 1989–2001 March Supplements to the Current Population Survey to determine whether welfare reform contributed to declines in health insurance coverage experienced by low-skilled women. Between 1988 and 2000, women with less than a high school education experienced an 8.0...

We analyze newly available data from the Health and Retirement Study on senior citizens’ take-up of Medicare Part D and the associated SSA Low-Income Subsidy. We find that economic factors ­ specifically, demand for prescription drugs ­ drove the decision to enroll in Part D. For the most...

Women and men tend to work in different occupations. Although a great deal of research has been devoted to the measurement of trends in occupation segregation by gender, very little work has focused on the underlying job choice process that generates this segregation. What makes men and women...

We analyze data from the Health and Retirement Study on senior citizens' take-up of Medicare Part D. Take-up among those without drug coverage in 2004 was high; about fifty to sixty percent of this group have Part D coverage in 2006. Only seven percent of senior citizens lack drug coverage in...