Does the safety net reduce food insecurity in families? In this paper we investigate how the structure of benefits for five major safety net programs - TANF, SSI, EITC, food assistance, and Medicaid - affects low food security in families. We build a calculator for the years 2001-2009 to impute...

The empirical analysis in this paper, which draws on Current Population Survey data, indicates that structural decline in the steel industry during the 1980s markedly affected the distribution of wages both in the industry and in steel-producing communities. The steelworker wage distribution...

Using data from the 1988-1996 Current Population Surveys (CPS), we re-examine the evidence presented in Yelowitz (1995) showing that expansions in Medicaid eligibility for children were associated with increased labor force participation and reduced participation in Aid to Families with...

Despite considerable research, there is little consensus about the impact of Medicaid eligibility expansions for low-income children. In this paper, I reexamine the expansions' impact on Medicaid take-up and private insurance "crowd-out." Focusing on the most influential estimates of the...

It has long been recognized that average wages vary strikingly across regions and urban areas in part due to differences in local amenities and fiscal policies. However, analogous differences in wage dispersion remain relatively unexplored. The authors develop a model suggesting that, after...

Economists have devoted considerable resources to estimating local average treatment effects of expansions in Medicaid eligibility for children. In this paper we use random coefficients linear probability models and switching probit models to estimate a more complete range of effects of Medicaid...