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Effects of the Expanded Child Tax Credit on Employment Outcomes: Evidence from Real-World Data from April to December 2021

Author

Listed:
  • Elizabeth Ananat
  • Benjamin Glasner
  • Christal Hamilton
  • Zachary Parolin

Abstract

Studies have established that the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC), which provided monthly cash payments to most U.S. families with children from July to December 2021, substantially reduced poverty and food hardship. Other studies posit, however, that the CTC payments may generate negative employment effects that could offset its potential poverty-reduction effects. Scholars have simulated employment scenarios assuming various labor supply elasticities, but less work has empirically assessed how the monthly payments affected employment outcomes using real-world data. To evaluate employment effects, we apply a series of difference-in-differences analyses using data from the monthly Current Population Survey and the Census Pulse, both from April through December 2021. Across both samples and several model specifications, we find very small, inconsistently signed, and statistically insignificant impacts of the CTC both on employment in the prior week and on active participation in the labor force among adults living in households with children. Further, labor supply responses to the policy change do not differ for households for whom the CTC’s expansion eliminated a previous work incentive. Thus, our analyses of real-world data suggest that the expanded CTC did not have negative short-term employment effects that offset its documented reductions in poverty and hardship.

Suggested Citation

  • Elizabeth Ananat & Benjamin Glasner & Christal Hamilton & Zachary Parolin, 2022. "Effects of the Expanded Child Tax Credit on Employment Outcomes: Evidence from Real-World Data from April to December 2021," NBER Working Papers 29823, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29823
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    Cited by:

    1. JungHo Park & Sujin Kim, 2023. "Child Tax Credit, Spending Patterns, and Mental Health: Mediation Analyses of Data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey during COVID-19," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-17, March.
    2. Kshama Dwarakanath & Jialin Dong & Svitlana Vyetrenko, 2024. "Tax Credits and Household Behavior: The Roles of Myopic Decision-Making and Liquidity in a Simulated Economy," Papers 2408.10391, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2024.
    3. Natasha V. Pilkauskas & Katherine Michelmore & Nicole Kovski & H. Luke Shaefer, 2024. "The expanded Child Tax Credit and economic wellbeing of low-income families," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(4), pages 1-35, December.
    4. Aleksandra Kolasa, 2024. "Welfare and economic implications of universal child benefits," Working Papers 2024-04, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    5. Margaret E. Brehm & Olga Malkova, 2023. "The Child Tax Credit over Time by Family Type: Benefit Eligibility and Poverty," National Tax Journal, University of Chicago Press, vol. 76(3), pages 707-741.
    6. Cha, Eunho & Lee, Jiwan & Tao, Stacie, 2023. "Impact of the expanded child tax credit and its expiration on adult psychological well-being," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 332(C).
    7. Lucas Zhang, 2024. "Continuous difference-in-differences with double/debiased machine learning," Papers 2408.10509, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

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