Scraping By
The Effect of the Minimum Wage on Children’s Cognitive Achievement
Krishna Regmi
Labour Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
At the center of the minimum wage debate is its role in improving the welfare of low-income families. However, there is little empirical evidence of whether minimum wage changes actually affect those families’ children. This paper examines the effect of the minimum wage on the math and reading achievement levels of children with low socioeconomic status whose parents are most likely to be affected by the minimum wage, comparing with children in households with high socioeconomic status. Estimates show that a $1 minimum wage increase reduces children’s math and reading scores by approximately 0.10-0.19 standard deviations. Further, there is evidence that increases in the minimum wage lead to deterioration in the home environment, which may be one potential mechanism underlying my main findings.
Does the Women, Infants, and Children Program Improve Infant Health Outcomes?
Brent Kreider, John Pepper & Manan Roy
Economic Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
We reevaluate the causal impacts of prenatal participation in the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) supplemental nutrition program on birth outcomes by simultaneously accounting for self‐selection into WIC and systematic underreporting of program participation. Combining survey data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study‐Birth Cohort with administrative data from the USDA, we extend partial identification methods to reflect institutional details of the WIC program and validate WIC program participation for a mixture of positive and negative responses. Our preferred estimates imply that WIC increases the prevalence of normal birth weight by at least 4.8% and normal gestation duration by at least 3.7%.
SNAP Schedules and Domestic Violence
Jillian Carr & Analisa Packham
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper exploits a policy change in Illinois that altered monthly nutritional assistance benefits dates to estimate the impact of in‐kind benefit receipt on domestic violence. We find that issuing SNAP benefits on days other than the first of the month increases domestic crimes. On average, we find the shifting benefit dates increases domestic abuse by 6.9 percent and child maltreatment by 30.0 percent. We posit that these effects are driven by increases in opportunities for conflict or changes in drug use.
An Apple A Day? Adult Food Stamp Eligibility and Health-Care Utilization among Immigrants
Chloe East & Andrew Friedson
American Journal of Health Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
In this study, we document the effect of food stamp access on adult health-care utilization. While the Food Stamp Program is one of the largest safety net programs in the United States today, the universal nature of the program across geographic areas and over time limits the potential for quasi-experimental analysis. To circumvent this issue, we use variation in documented immigrants’ eligibility for food stamps across states and over time due to welfare reform in 1996. Our estimates indicate that access to food stamps reduced physician visits. These findings have important implications for cost-benefit analyses of the Food Stamp Program, as reductions in physician visits due to food stamps may offset some of the program’s impact on the overall government budget because of the existence of government-provided health insurance programs such as Medicaid.
Do laypersons conflate poverty and neglect?
Kelli Dickerson, Jennifer Lavoie & Jodi Quas
Law and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Method: In 2 studies, adults read vignettes about a mother’s care of her daughter and rendered decisions about whether the mother’s behavior met the legal standard of neglect and should be reported. In Study 1 (N = 365, 55% female, mean age = 37.12 years), indicators of poverty and neglect were manipulated. In Study 2 (N = 474, 53% female, mean age = 38.25 years), only poverty (housing instability: homelessness vs. not) was manipulated.
Results: Laypersons often conflated poverty and neglect, especially in circumstances of homelessness. Laypersons of lower socioeconomic background were less likely to perceive neglect in general and to report an obligation to make a referral (R2s ranged from 17-26%, odds ratios ranged from 2.24-3.08).
Evidence of Neighborhood Effects from Moving to Opportunity: LATEs of Neighborhood Quality
Dionissi Aliprantis & Francisca Richter
Review of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper estimates neighborhood effects on adult labor market outcomes using the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) housing mobility experiment. We propose and implement a new strategy for identifying transition-specific effects that exploits identification of the unobserved component of a neighborhood choice model. Estimated Local Average Treatment Effects (LATEs) are large, result from moves between the first and second deciles of the national distribution of neighborhood quality, and pertain to a subpopulation of nine percent of program participants.
The Health Effects Of Expanding The Earned Income Tax Credit: Results From New York City
Emilie Courtin et al.
Health Affairs, July 2020, Pages 1149-1156
Abstract:
Antipoverty policies may hold promise as tools to improve health and reduce mortality rates among low-income Americans. We examined the health effects of the New York City Paycheck Plus randomized controlled trial. Paycheck Plus tests the impact of a potential fourfold increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income Americans without dependent children. Starting in 2015, Paycheck Plus offered 5,968 study participants a credit of up to $2,000 at tax time (treatment) or the standard credit of about $500 (control). Health-related quality of life and other outcomes for a representative subset of these participants (n = 3,289) were compared to those of a control group thirty-two months after randomization. The intervention had a modest positive effect on employment and earnings, particularly among women. It had no effect on health-related quality of life for the overall sample, but women realized significant improvements.
Early Social Security Claiming and Old-Age Poverty: Evidence from the Introduction of the Social Security Early Eligibility Age
Gary Engelhardt, Jonathan Gruber & Anil Kumar
Journal of Human Resources, forthcoming
Abstract:
We estimate the impact of the Social Security early entitlement age (EEA) on later-life income, poverty, and mortality, by tracing birth cohorts of men who had access to different potential claiming ages from the Social Security Amendments of 1961, which introduced age 62 as the EEA. Based on 1968-2001 Current Population Survey data, the average claiming age fell by 1.4 years, Social Security income fell for male-headed families by 2.4% at the mean and 6% at the 25th percentile. Total family income fell, and the poverty rate rose by about one percentage point. Finally, mortality rates fell modestly in retirement.
Beyond Labor Market Outcomes: The Impact of the Minimum Wage on Nondurable Consumption
Cristian Alonso
Journal of Human Resources, forthcoming
Abstract:
How effective is the minimum wage at raising nondurable household consumption through the redistribution of income towards low-wage workers? To address this question, I use novel data on retail sales by county and exploit variation in the minimum wage rate across the U.S. and over time. I find that a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage raises sales by 0.6 percent in nominal terms and 0.4 percent in real terms. These large effects are suggestive of high marginal propensities to spend on nondurables out of minimum wage hikes. The expenditure response emerges even when exploiting only within-state variation.
Credit where it is due: Investigating pathways from earned income tax credit expansion to maternal mental health
Anuj Gangopadhyaya et al.
Health Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
While earned income tax credit (EITC) expansions are typically associated with improvements in maternal mental health, little is known about the mechanisms through which the program affects this outcome. The EITC could primarily affect mental health through changes in family financial resources, changes in labor supply or changes in health insurance coverage of participants. We attempt to disentangle these mechanisms by assessing the effects of state and federal EITC expansion on mental health, employment, and health insurance by maternal marital status. We find that federal EITC expansions are associated with improved self‐reported mental health for all mothers and large positive effects on employment for unmarried mothers. State EITC expansions are associated with improvements in mental health for married mothers only and have no effect on employment for married or unmarried mothers. Overall and for most subgroups of mothers, we find little association between EITC expansions and changes in health insurance coverage. These findings suggest that while EITC expansions improved mental health for unmarried mothers through a combination of the credit and employment effects, for married mothers, improved mental health is driven through the direct credit alone.