Making Single Mothers Work: Recent Tax and Welfare Policy and its Effects

52 Pages Posted: 29 Feb 2000 Last revised: 22 Dec 2022

See all articles by Bruce D. Meyer

Bruce D. Meyer

University of Chicago - Harris School of Public Policy; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Dan T. Rosenbaum

University of North Carolina (UNC) at Greensboro - Department of Economics

Date Written: January 2000

Abstract

We describe the enormous changes in social and tax policy in recent years that have encouraged work by single mothers. We document the changes in federal and state income taxes, AFDC and Food Stamp benefits, Medicaid, training and child care programs. We describe the quantitative importance of these changes and their timing. We also describe how these changes differed across states and show how they affected families with different numbers and ages of children and with different family incomes. We then examine whether the changes in employment rates over time for different demographic groups and states are consistent with a causal effect of these policies on employment. We use multiple comparison groups and two datasets over a long time period. The results support the more structural findings in Meyer and Rosenbaum (1999a) of substantial EITC effects on employment as well as the findings in Eissa and Liebman (1996) and Ellwood (1999).

Suggested Citation

Meyer, Bruce D. and Rosenbaum, Dan T., Making Single Mothers Work: Recent Tax and Welfare Policy and its Effects (January 2000). NBER Working Paper No. w7491, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=207668

Bruce D. Meyer (Contact Author)

University of Chicago - Harris School of Public Policy ( email )

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Dan T. Rosenbaum

University of North Carolina (UNC) at Greensboro - Department of Economics ( email )

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Greensboro, NC 27402-6165
United States
336-334-4872 (Phone)
336- 334-4089 (Fax)

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