In need
Cindy Leung et al.
Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, forthcoming
Objective: To examine whether short-term participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) affects food security and dietary quality among low-income adults recruited from a Massachusetts-wide emergency food hotline.
Methods: A 3-month, longitudinal study was conducted among 107 adults recruited at the time of SNAP application assistance. Outcomes included household food security (10-item US Department of Agriculture Food Security Survey Module), dietary intake (eg, grains, fruit) and diet quality (modified Alternate Healthy Eating Index). Data were analyzed using paired t tests and multivariable linear regression.
Results: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program participation was not associated with improved household food security over 3 months (P = .25). Compared with non-participants, SNAP participants increased refined grain intake by 1.1 serving/d (P = .02), from baseline to follow-up. No associations were observed with other foods, nutrients, or dietary quality.
Conclusion and Implications: Policies that simultaneously improve household food security and dietary quality should be implemented to support the health of low-income Americans participating in this crucial program.
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The Role of Workfare in Striking a Balance between Incentives and Insurance in the Labour Market
Torben Andersen & Michael Svarer
Economica, forthcoming
Abstract:
Unemployment insurance tends to distort incentives in the labour market, affecting job search and wage formation adversely. We show in a search-matching model that this moral hazard problem can be reduced by attaching a workfare requirement to the eligibility conditions for claiming unemployment benefits. Even when workfare has no effects on human capital or productivity, it is possible to improve labour market performance to create more jobs and lower unemployment by the introduction of workfare, and also to improve welfare. Hence the incentive structure in the labour market can be improved by workfare policies rather than benefit reductions.
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Unemployment Insurance and Cultural Transmission: Theory and Application to European Unemployment
Jean-Baptiste Michau
Journal of the European Economic Association, December 2013, Pages 1320–1347
Abstract:
This paper emphasizes the two-way causality between the provision of unemployment insurance and the cultural transmission of civicness. The returns to being uncivic are increasing in the generosity of unemployment insurance; but this generosity is decreasing in the number of uncivic individuals. In this context, I determine the evolution of preferences across generations and show that cultural heterogeneity is sustained over the long-run. The dynamics of cultural transmission can generate a long lag between the introduction of unemployment insurance and an increase in people's willingness to live off government-provided benefits. Hence, it offers an explanation to the ‘European unemployment puzzle’ due to the coexistence of generous unemployment insurance and low unemployment in the 1950s and 1960s.
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Perverse Consequences of Well Intentioned Regulation: Evidence from India's Child Labor Ban
Prashant Bharadwaj, Leah Lakdawala & Nicholas Li
NBER Working Paper, October 2013
Abstract:
While bans against child labor are a common policy tool, there is very little empirical evidence validating their effectiveness. In this paper, we examine the consequences of India’s landmark legislation against child labor, the Child Labor (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986. Using data from employment surveys conducted before and after the ban, and using age restrictions that determined who the ban applied to, we show that child wages decrease and child labor increases after the ban. These results are consistent with a theoretical model building on the seminal work of Basu and Van (1998) and Basu (2005), where families use child labor to reach subsistence constraints and where child wages decrease in response to bans, leading poor families to utilize more child labor. The increase in child labor comes at the expense of reduced school enrollment. We also examine the effects of the ban at the household level. Using linked consumption and expenditure data, we find that along various margins of household expenditure, consumption, calorie intake and asset holdings, households are worse off after the ban.
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The Impact of Earnings Disregards on the Behavior of Low-Income Families
Jordan Matsudaira & Rebecca Blank
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper investigates the impact of changes in earnings disregards for welfare assistance received by single mothers following welfare reform in 1996. Some states adopted much higher earnings disregards (women could work full-time and still receive substantial welfare benefits), while other states did not. We explore the effect of these changes on women's labor supply and income using several data sources and multiple estimation strategies. Our results indicate these changes had little effect on labor supply or income. We show this is because surprisingly few women used the earnings disregards. We discuss several explanations for why this might occur.
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Income Gains and Very Low-Weight Birth among Low-Income Black Mothers in California
Tim Bruckner, David Rehkopf & Ralph Catalano
Biodemography and Social Biology, Fall 2013, Pages 141-156
Abstract:
We test the hypothesis suggested in the literature that an acute income gain in the form of the earned income tax credit reduces the odds of a very low-weight birth among low-income non-Hispanic black mothers. We apply ecological time series and supplemental individual-level logistic regression methods to monthly birth data from California between 1989 and 1997. Contrary to our hypothesis, the odds of very low-weight birth increases above its expected value two months after mothers typically receive the credit. We discuss our findings in relation to the epidemiologic literature concerned with ambient events during pregnancy and recommend further investigation.
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Fredrik Andersson et al.
Census Bureau Working Paper, September 2013
Abstract:
Research on effects of living in voucher-assisted and public housing to date has largely focused on short-term outcomes, while data limitations and challenges of identification have been an obstacle to conclusive results. In contrast, this paper assesses effects of children’s housing on their later employment and earnings, uses national longitudinal data, and makes use of withinhousehold variation to mitigate selection issues. We combine several national datasets on housing assistance, teenagers and their households, and the subsequent earnings and employment outcomes, such that we are able to follow1.8 million children aged 13-18 in 2000 in over 800,000 households within many different assisted and unassisted housing settings, controlling for neighborhood conditions, and examine their labor market outcomes for the 2008-2010 period. By focusing on within-family variation in subsidy treatment, we remove a substantial source of unobserved heterogeneity affecting both a child’s selection into housing and their later outcomes. OLS estimates show a substantial negative effect of housing subsidies on earnings and employment outcomes. However, using within-household variation to control for selection issues attenuates these effects, and results in positive effects for some demographic groups. The large sample size allows us to study to what extent results vary by gender and race/ethnicity, and we find strong evidence of heterogeneous effects. Children in Black households who have lived in voucher-supported housing and public housing often benefit in terms of positive subsequent economic outcomes. Girls raised in Black households derive a considerable positive effect on later earnings from having lived in voucher-supported housing, and a somewhat lesser effect from having lived in public housing. Boys raised in Black households fare relatively worse than girls; in contrast, girls in White households tend to have relatively worse outcomes than boys.
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The poverty–vulnerability–resilience nexus: Evidence from Bangladesh
Sonia Akter & Bishawjit Mallick
Ecological Economics, December 2013, Pages 114–124
Abstract:
Vulnerability and resilience lie at the core of the new paradigm governing natural disaster risk management frameworks. However, empirical understandings of socio-economic resilience and its links with poverty and vulnerability are limited. This paper presents an empirical investigation of socio-economic resilience to natural disasters in a tropical cyclone-prone coastal community in Bangladesh. The results indicate that the cyclone in question had negative impacts on the community, particularly in terms of income, employment and access to clean water and sanitation. Consistent with the findings of the social vulnerability literature, our results also suggest that the poor were more vulnerable and suffered significantly higher economic, physical and structural damage. However, this high vulnerability did not necessarily lead to low resilience, as these individuals exhibited a greater ability to withstand the shock compared to their non-poor neighbors. This refutes the flip-side hypothesis of the link between vulnerability and resilience (i.e. vulnerability is the flip side of resilience). The findings imply that the increased risk of tropical cyclones is likely to reduce incomes and standards of living among the tropical coastal communities. However, the burden of these adverse impacts is unlikely to be disproportionally borne by the poorer segment of the society.
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The Economics of Slums in the Developing World
Benjamin Marx, Thomas Stoker & Tavneet Suri
Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2013, Pages 187-210
Abstract:
The global expansion of urban slums poses questions for economic research as well as problems for policymakers. We provide evidence that the type of poverty observed in contemporary slums of the developing world is characteristic of that described in the literature on poverty traps. We document how human capital threshold effects, investment inertia, and a "policy trap" may prevent slum dwellers from seizing economic opportunities offered by geographic proximity to the city. We test the assumptions of another theory -- that slums are a just transitory phenomenon characteristic of fastgrowing economies -- by examining the relationship between economic growth, urban growth, and slum growth in the developing world, and whether standards of living of slum dwellers are improving over time, both within slums and across generations. Finally, we discuss why standard policy approaches have often failed to mitigate the expansion of slums in the developing world. Our aim is to inform public debate on the essential issues posed by slums in the developing world.
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Effects of childhood poverty and chronic stress on emotion regulatory brain function in adulthood
Pilyoung Kim et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 12 November 2013, Pages 18442-18447
Abstract:
Childhood poverty has pervasive negative physical and psychological health sequelae in adulthood. Exposure to chronic stressors may be one underlying mechanism for childhood poverty−health relations by influencing emotion regulatory systems. Animal work and human cross-sectional studies both suggest that chronic stressor exposure is associated with amygdala and prefrontal cortex regions important for emotion regulation. In this longitudinal functional magnetic resonance imaging study of 49 participants, we examined associations between childhood poverty at age 9 and adult neural circuitry activation during emotion regulation at age 24. To test developmental timing, concurrent, adult income was included as a covariate. Adults with lower family income at age 9 exhibited reduced ventrolateral and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity and failure to suppress amygdala activation during effortful regulation of negative emotion at age 24. In contrast to childhood income, concurrent adult income was not associated with neural activity during emotion regulation. Furthermore, chronic stressor exposure across childhood (at age 9, 13, and 17) mediated the relations between family income at age 9 and ventrolateral and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity at age 24. The findings demonstrate the significance of childhood chronic stress exposures in predicting neural outcomes during emotion regulation in adults who grew up in poverty.
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Joan Luby et al.
JAMA Pediatrics, forthcoming
Objective: To investigate whether the income-to-needs ratio experienced in early childhood impacts brain development at school age and to explore the mediators of this effect.
Design, Setting, and Participants: This study was conducted at an academic research unit at the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis. Data from a prospective longitudinal study of emotion development in preschool children who participated in neuroimaging at school age were used to investigate the effects of poverty on brain development. Children were assessed annually for 3 to 6 years prior to the time of a magnetic resonance imaging scan, during which they were evaluated on psychosocial, behavioral, and other developmental dimensions. Preschoolers included in the study were 3 to 6 years of age and were recruited from primary care and day care sites in the St Louis metropolitan area; they were annually assessed behaviorally for 5 to 10 years. Healthy preschoolers and those with clinical symptoms of depression participated in neuroimaging at school age/early adolescence.
Main Outcomes and Measures: Brain volumes of children’s white matter and cortical gray matter, as well as hippocampus and amygdala volumes, obtained using magnetic resonance imaging. Mediators of interest were caregiver support/hostility measured observationally during the preschool period and stressful life events measured prospectively.
Results: Poverty was associated with smaller white and cortical gray matter and hippocampal and amygdala volumes. The effects of poverty on hippocampal volume were mediated by caregiving support/hostility on the left and right, as well as stressful life events on the left.
Conclusions and Relevance: The finding that exposure to poverty in early childhood materially impacts brain development at school age further underscores the importance of attention to the well-established deleterious effects of poverty on child development. Findings that these effects on the hippocampus are mediated by caregiving and stressful life events suggest that attempts to enhance early caregiving should be a focused public health target for prevention and early intervention. Findings substantiate the behavioral literature on the negative effects of poverty on child development and provide new data confirming that effects extend to brain development. Mechanisms for these effects on the hippocampus are suggested to inform intervention.
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The Effect of Safety Net Programs on Food Insecurity
Lucie Schmidt, Lara Shore-Sheppard & Tara Watson
NBER Working Paper, October 2013
Abstract:
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 eligibility and benefits for these programs in each state, taking into account cross-program eligibility rules. To identify a causal effect of the safety net, we use simulated eligibility and benefits for a nationally representative sample as instruments for imputed eligibility and potential benefits. We also perform a two-sample instrumental variables estimation in which we use simulated benefits as instruments for actual reported benefits. Focusing on non-immigrant, single-parent families with incomes below 300 percent of the poverty line, the results suggest that each $1000 in cash or food benefits actually received reduces the incidence of low food security by 4 percentage points. These estimates imply that moving from the policies of the 10th percentile state of Kentucky to the 90th percentile state of Vermont would reduce low food security by 1.7 percentage points on a base incidence of 33 percent. We are unable to reject equivalent impacts of cash and food assistance. The results also highlight the importance of jointly considering a full range of safety net programs.
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The Local Economic Effects of Public Housing in the United States, 1940–1970
Katharine Shester
Journal of Economic History, December 2013, Pages 978-1016
Abstract:
Between 1933 and 1973 the federal government funded the construction of over 1 million units of low-rent housing. Using county-level data, I find that communities with high densities of public housing had lower median family income, lower median property values, lower population density, and a higher percentage of families with low income in 1970. However, I find no negative effects of public housing in 1950 or 1960, implying that long-run negative effects only became apparent in the 1960s. The effects found in 1970 are partially due to a decline in human capital.
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Elton Mykerezi, Bradford Mills & Ilda Melo
Social Science Journal, December 2013, Pages 438–448
Abstract:
We use U.S. quarterly consumption data and decomposable poverty indexes to study consumption-based intra-annual poverty and its relationship to participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Intra-annual spells of consumption-poverty account for half of the incidence and one-third of the severity of all consumption-poverty among U.S. households. Households experiencing consumption-poverty for at least one quarter, but not for the whole year, are more likely to self-select into SNAP than the general population but less likely to do so than those who are poor for the year. SNAP participation, in turn, reduces annual and intra-annual poverty.
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Taking Up Social Benefits: A Cautionary Tale from an Unemployment Insurance Survey Experiment
Alexander Hertel-Fernandez & Jeffrey Wenger
University of Georgia Working Paper, September 2013
Abstract:
What role can information play in changing the take-up of social benefits? Using evidence from an online, large-scale survey experiment of American workers, the authors answer this question in the context of unemployment insurance (UI). Three treatments provided accurate, concise, and customized information about UI eligibility requirements, benefit generosity, and application procedures to respondents. The experimental results unambiguously show a statistically and substantively significant decline in workers’ self-reported willingness to apply for UI benefits after receiving information about program details. These declines were largest for workers who received information about the program’s eligibility requirements and application procedures. The analysis suggests that the information treatments countered pre-existing beliefs that unemployment benefits would be generous and easy to receive, thus lowering workers’ likelihood of applying once they had learned about the program’s actual rules. These results provide a cautionary lesson for policymakers seeking to broaden social benefit take-up through information interventions.
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Marah Curtis et al.
Demography, forthcoming
Abstract:
We exploited an exogenous health shock — namely, the birth of a child with a severe health condition — to investigate the effect of a life shock on homelessness in large cities in the United States as well as the interactive effects of the shock with housing market characteristics. We considered a traditional measure of homelessness, two measures of housing instability thought to be precursors to homelessness, and a combined measure that approximates the broadened conceptualization of homelessness under the 2009 Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing Act (2010). We found that the shock substantially increases the likelihood of family homelessness, particularly in cities with high housing costs. The findings are consistent with the economic theory of homelessness, which posits that homelessness results from a conjunction of adverse circumstances in which housing markets and individual characteristics collide.
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Social Protection and Satisfaction with Democracy: A Multi-level Analysis
Kadri Lühiste
Political Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
The aim of this article is to examine the link between the quality of social protection and citizens' satisfaction with the functioning of democracy – an association that has received very limited attention in the rich body of empirical research on popular satisfaction with democracy. To test the hypothesis that social protection levels influence citizens' satisfaction with democracy, the article conducts a multi-level regression analysis using European Social Survey (2008/9) data from 24 countries. The results of the analysis demonstrate that between-country differences are linked to variation in social protection levels, and within-country differences depend on individual satisfaction with social provision, while controlling for other relevant factors. The findings indicate that people do expect democratic regimes to provide social protection along with economic performance and thus suggest that democratic governments face a challenge in meeting simultaneous demands for social protection and economic prosperity. Altogether, the study contributes to debates about the implications of welfare policies and citizen satisfaction with regime performance.
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The Effect of Long-Term Relocation on Child and Adolescent Survivors of Hurricane Katrina
Tonya Hansel et al.
Journal of Traumatic Stress, October 2013, Pages 613–620
Abstract:
The current study is designed to increase knowledge of the effects of relocation and its association with longer-term psychological symptoms following disaster. Following clinical observations and in discussions held with school officials expressing concerns about relocated students, it was hypothesized that students who relocated to a different city following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 would have more symptoms of posttraumatic stress compared to students who returned to New Orleans. The effect of Hurricane Katrina relocation was assessed on a sample of child and adolescent survivors in 5th through 12th grades (N = 795). Students with Orleans Parish zip codes prior to Hurricane Katrina were categorized into relocation groupings: (a) relocated to Baton Rouge, (b) returned to prior zip code, and (c) moved to a different zip code within Orleans Parish. Overall results revealed more trauma symptoms for relocated students. Results also revealed that younger relocated students had fewer symptoms compared to older students. The opposite was found for students who returned to their same zip code, with older students having fewer symptoms. This study supports the need for school-based services not only in disaster areas, but also in schools where survivors tend to migrate.