IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/6995.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Demographic Change and Public Assistance Expenditures

Author

Listed:
  • Robert A. Moffitt

Abstract

Growth in overall real welfare expenditures per capita has been a noted trend in the last thirty years in the U.S. The influence of demographic forces in contributing to this growth is considered in this paper. It is found that the growth of female-headed families is the strongest and dominant force in contributing to trends in real AFDC expenditures per capita over the long run. The influence of demographic growth is especially strong for the black population. For the Food Stamp and Medicaid programs, increases in participation rates, on the other hand, have been more important. Projections of future trends in the age, race, and sex composition of the U.S. population show that expenditures in none of these programs is likely to respond to such basic demographic trends, however.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert A. Moffitt, 1999. "Demographic Change and Public Assistance Expenditures," NBER Working Papers 6995, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6995
    Note: PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w6995.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Moffitt, Robert, 1983. "An Economic Model of Welfare Stigma," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(5), pages 1023-1035, December.
    2. Moffitt, Robert & Ribar, David & Wilhelm, Mark, 1998. "The decline of welfare benefits in the U.S.: the role of wage inequality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 421-452, June.
    3. Hilary Williamson Hoynes, 1996. "Work, Welfare, and Family Structure: What Have We Learned?," NBER Working Papers 5644, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Jonathan Gruber, 1997. "Policy Watch: Medicaid and Uninsured Women and Children," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 199-208, Fall.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pankaj C. Patel & Cornelius A. Rietveld & Jack I. Richter, 2022. "The relation between public assistance and self-employment in census tracts: a long-term perspective," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 891-927, July.
    2. Robert Moffitt, 1999. "Explaining Welfare Reform: Public Choice and the Labor Market," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 6(3), pages 289-315, August.
    3. Pablo D. López Zadicoff & Jorge A. Paz, 2003. "El Programa Jefes de Hogar. Eligibilidad, participación y trabajo," CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. 242, Universidad del CEMA.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thomas J. Nechyba, 2001. "Social Approval, Values, and AFDC: A Reexamination of the Illegitimacy Debate," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(3), pages 637-666, June.
    2. Robert Moffitt, 1999. "Explaining Welfare Reform: Public Choice and the Labor Market," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 6(3), pages 289-315, August.
    3. Yelowitz, Aaron S., 1998. "Why did the SSI-disabled program grow so much? Disentangling the effect of Medicaid," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 321-349, June.
    4. Erzo F. P. Luttmer, 2001. "Group Loyalty and the Taste for Redistribution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(3), pages 500-528, June.
    5. Anandi Mani & Charles H. Mullin, 2001. "Social Approval and Teenage Childbearing," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0103, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    6. Fayaz Farkhad, Bita & Meyerhoefer, Chad D., 2018. "The Impact of Participation in SNAP on Labor Force Decisions," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274180, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    7. Williamson Hoyne, Hilary, 1997. "Does welfare play any role in female headship decisions?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 89-117, August.
    8. Brizmohun, Roshini & Duffy, Patricia A., 2016. "Do Personal Attitudes about Welfare Influence Food Stamp Participation?," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235698, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    9. David W. Emmons & Eva Madly & Stephen A. Woodbury, 2005. "Refundable Tax Credits for Health Insurance: The Sensitivity of Simulated Impacts to Assumed Behavior," Upjohn Working Papers 05-119, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    10. Kurita, Kenichi & Hori, Nobuaki & Katafuchi, Yuya, 2019. "Model of endogenous welfare stigma: Statistical discrimination view," MPRA Paper 98299, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Huffman, Sonya Kostova & Jensen, Helen H., 2003. "Do Food Assistance Programs Improve Household Food Security?: Recent Evidence From The United States," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 22219, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    12. Gundersen, Craig & Jolliffe, Dean & Tiehen, Laura, 2009. "The challenge of program evaluation: When increasing program participation decreases the relative well-being of participants," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 367-376, August.
    13. Marianne P. Bitler & Hilary W. Hoynes, 2010. "The state of the safety net in the post-welfare reform era," Working Paper Series 2010-31, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    14. Regina T. Riphahn, 2001. "Rational Poverty or Poor Rationality? The Take‐up of Social Assistance Benefits," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 47(3), pages 379-398, September.
    15. Ozturk, Orgul & Chyi, hau, 2006. "The Effects of Single Mothers' Welfare Participation and Work Decisions on Children's Attainments," MPRA Paper 10110, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2008.
    16. Assar Lindbeck & Mårten Palme & Mats Persson, 2016. "Sickness Absence and Local Benefit Cultures," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 118(1), pages 49-78, January.
    17. Keane, Michael & Moffitt, Robert, 1998. "A Structural Model of Multiple Welfare Program Participation and Labor Supply," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(3), pages 553-589, August.
    18. Farzin, Y. Hossein & Akao, Ken-Ichi, 2005. "Non-pecuniary Work Incentive and Labor Supply," Working Papers 190910, University of California, Davis, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    19. Gauthier, A.H., 1995. "Policies and the division of labour within families : The neglected link," WORC Paper 95.04.006/6, Tilburg University, Work and Organization Research Centre.
    20. Craig Gundersen & Brent Kreider, 2008. "Food Stamps and Food Insecurity: What Can Be Learned in the Presence of Nonclassical Measurement Error?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(2), pages 352-382.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • H53 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6995. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.