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Finance and Economics Discussion Series
Finance and Economics Discussion Series logo links to FEDS home page The Effects of Welfare Reform and Related Policies on Single Mothers' Welfare Use and Employment in the 1990s
Adam Looney
2005-45


Abstract: This paper examines how changes in tax policy, welfare programs, public health insurance, and economic conditions during the 1990s affected welfare use and employment among single mothers. Drawing on panel data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, I give new estimates of the effects of specific policy changes and use those estimates to explain changes in economic behavior. The results suggest that Welfare Reform policies, the EITC, and improved economic conditions, in that order, were the primary determinants of changes in welfare use and employment between 1993 and 1999.

Keywords: Welfare reform, EITC, Medicaid, labor supply, single mothers.

Full paper (415 KB PDF)


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Last update: October 6, 2005