IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cen/cpaper/2014-15.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The EITC over the business cycle: Who benefits?

Author

Listed:
  • Maggie R. Jones

Abstract

In this paper, I examine the impact of the Great Recession on Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) eligibility. Because the EITC is structurally tied to earnings, the direction of this impact is not immediately obvious. Families who experience complete job loss for an entire tax year lose eligibility, while those experiencing underemployment (part-year employment, a reduction in hours, or spousal unemployment in married households) may become eligible. Determining the direction and magnitude of the impact is important for a number of reasons. The EITC has become the largest cash-transfer program in the U.S., and many low-earning families rely on it as a means of support in tough times. The program has largely been viewed as a replacement for welfare, enticing former welfare recipients into the labor force. However, the effectiveness of the EITC during a period of very high unemployment has not been assessed. To answer these questions, I first use the Current Population Survey (CPS) matched to Internal Revenue Service data from tax years 2005 to 2010 to assess patterns of employment and eligibility over the Great Recession for different labor-force groups. Results indicate that overall, EITC eligibility increased over the recession, but only among groups that were cushioned from total household earnings loss by marriage. I also use the 2006 CPS matched to tax data from 2005 through 2011 to examine changes in eligibility experienced by individuals over time. In assessing three competing causes of eligibility loss, I find that less-educated, unmarried women experienced a greater hazard of eligibility loss due a yearlong lack of earnings compared with other labor-market groups. I discuss the implications of these findings on the view of the EITC as a safety-net program.

Suggested Citation

  • Maggie R. Jones, 2014. "The EITC over the business cycle: Who benefits?," CARRA Working Papers 2014-15, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
  • Handle: RePEc:cen:cpaper:2014-15
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/working-papers/2014/adrm/carra-wp-2014-15.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2014
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bruce D. Meyer & Dan T. Rosenbaum, 2001. "Welfare, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Labor Supply of Single Mothers," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(3), pages 1063-1114.
    2. Jeffrey Grogger, 2003. "The Effects of Time Limits, the EITC, and Other Policy Changes on Welfare Use, Work, and Income among Female-Headed Families," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(2), pages 394-408, May.
    3. Chinhui Juhn & Simon Potter, 2006. "Changes in Labor Force Participation in the United States," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(3), pages 27-46, Summer.
    4. Note: For best results & the figures should be printed on a non-Postscript printer. Hoynes & H., "undated". "The Employment, Earnings, and Income of Less-Skilled Workers over the Business Cycle," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1199-99, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    5. Saul D. Hoffman & Laurence S. Seidman, 2003. "Helping Working Families: The Earned Income Tax Credit," Books from Upjohn Press, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, number hwf, November.
    6. Melvin Stephens, 2002. "Worker Displacement and the Added Worker Effect," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(3), pages 504-537, July.
    7. Marianne P. Bitler & Hilary W. Hoynes, 2010. "The State of Social Safety Net in the Post-Welfare Reform Era," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 41(2 (Fall)), pages 71-147.
    8. Marianne Bitler & Hilary Hoynes & Elira Kuka, 2017. "Do In-Work Tax Credits Serve as a Safety Net?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 52(2), pages 319-350.
    9. Rebecca M. Blank, 2001. "What Causes Public Assistance Caseloads to Grow?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 36(1), pages 85-118.
    10. Michael W. L. Elsby & Bart Hobijn & Aysegul Sahin, 2010. "The Labor Market in the Great Recession," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 41(1 (Spring), pages 1-69.
    11. Tim Dowd & John B. Horowitz, 2011. "Income Mobility and the Earned Income Tax Credit," Public Finance Review, , vol. 39(5), pages 619-652, September.
    12. Brittany Bond & J. David Brown & Adela Luque & Amy O’Hara, 2014. "The Nature of the Bias When Studying Only Linkable Person Records: Evidence from the American Community Survey," CARRA Working Papers 2014-08, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    13. Lesley J. Turner & Sheldon Danziger & Kristin S. Seefeldt, 2006. "Failing the Transition from Welfare to Work: Women Chronically Disconnected from Employment and Cash Welfare," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 87(2), pages 227-249, June.
    14. James P. Ziliak & David N. Figlio & Elizabeth E. Davis & Laura S. Connolly, 2000. "Accounting for the Decline in AFDC Caseloads: Welfare Reform or the Economy?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 35(3), pages 570-586.
    15. Chinhui Juhn & Simon M. Potter, 2007. "Is there still an added-worker effect?," Staff Reports 310, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    16. V. Joseph Hotz & John Karl Scholz, 2006. "Examining the Effect of the Earned Income Tax Credit on the Labor Market Participation of Families on Welfare," NBER Working Papers 11968, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Marianne Bitler & Hilary Hoynes, 2016. "The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same? The Safety Net and Poverty in the Great Recession," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(S1), pages 403-444.
    2. Elira Kuka & Na'ama Shenhav, 2024. "Long-Run Effects of Incentivizing Work after Childbirth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(6), pages 1692-1722, June.
    3. Marianne P. Bitler & Hilary W. Hoynes, 2010. "The State of Social Safety Net in the Post-Welfare Reform Era," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 41(2 (Fall)), pages 71-147.
    4. 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.
    5. Rebecca M. Blank, 2002. "Evaluating Welfare Reform in the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(4), pages 1105-1166, December.
    6. Badi H. Baltagi & Yin‐Fang Yen, 2016. "Welfare Reform and Children's Health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(3), pages 277-291, March.
    7. Meyer, Bruce D. & Sullivan, James X., 2004. "The effects of welfare and tax reform: the material well-being of single mothers in the 1980s and 1990s," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1387-1420, July.
    8. Hayashi, Masayoshi, 2014. "Forecasting welfare caseloads: The case of the Japanese public assistance program," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 105-114.
    9. Bradley Hardy & Timothy Smeeding & James P. Ziliak, 2018. "The Changing Safety Net for Low-Income Parents and Their Children: Structural or Cyclical Changes in Income Support Policy?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(1), pages 189-221, February.
    10. Chris Herbst & David Stevens, 2010. "The Impact of Local Labor Market Conditions on Work and Welfare Decisions: Revisiting an Old Question Using New Data," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 29(4), pages 453-479, August.
    11. Florian Buhlmann & Benjamin Elsner & Andreas Peichl, 2018. "Tax refunds and income manipulation: evidence from the EITC," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(6), pages 1490-1518, December.
    12. Simpson, Nicole B., 2013. "Families, Taxes and the Welfare System," IZA Discussion Papers 7369, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Razzu, Giovanni & Singleton, Carl, 2016. "Gender and the business cycle: An analysis of labour markets in the US and UK," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB), pages 131-146.
    14. Jeffrey Grogger, 2004. "Welfare transitions in the 1990s: The economy, welfare policy, and the EITC," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(4), pages 671-695.
    15. Adam Looney, 2005. "The effects of welfare reform and related policies on single mothers' welfare use and employment," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2005-45, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    16. Lauren E. Jones & Guangyi Wang & Tansel Yilmazer, 2022. "The long‐term effect of the Earned Income Tax Credit on women's physical and mental health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(6), pages 1067-1102, June.
    17. Jeffrey Grogger, 2004. "Time Limits and Welfare Use," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(2).
    18. Marianne Bitler & Hilary Hoynes & Elira Kuka, 2017. "Do In-Work Tax Credits Serve as a Safety Net?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 52(2), pages 319-350.
    19. Bruce D. Meyer, 2010. "The Effects of the Earned Income Tax Credit and Recent Reforms," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 24, pages 153-180, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Neumark, David & Shirley, Peter, 2020. "The Long-Run Effects of the Earned Income Tax Credit on Women's Labor Market Outcomes," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).

    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:cen:cpaper:2014-15. 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: Dawn Anderson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesgvus.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.