Do welfare benefits cause the welfare caseload?
نویسندگان
چکیده
Analyses of the welfare system generally examine one of five competing models: (1) The work disincentive model; (2) the human capital model; (3) the macroeconomic model; (4) the public choice model; or (5) the cost-of-job-loss model. This paper employs the Granger causality concept and the multiple-rank F statistic to test the implications of all five of these models simultaneously. The results offer modest support to all but the macroeconomic model. The relationships among welfare benefits, caseloads, and labor market conditions appear to be too complex to be fully captured by a single model.
منابع مشابه
Welfare Reform and Food Stamp Caseload Dynamics
We use state-level panel data for federal fiscal years 1980–1998 to estimate the impacts of welfare reform and the business cycle on food stamp caseloads. The model we employ is a dynamic function of past caseloads, economic factors, AFDC and Food Stamp Program policies, political factors, AFDC caseload levels, and unobserved fixed and trending heterogeneity. Our results suggest that the robust...
متن کاملReducing Food Stamp and Welfare Caseloads in the South: Are Rural Areas Less Likely to Succeed Than Urban Centers? by
In this paper, tests are made for the effect that the spatial distribution of welfare and Food Stamp caseloads may have on caseload change in the South. Spatial effects are captured by contrasting caseload trends overtime in metropolitan (urban) counties and nonmetropolitan (rural) counties within two southern states, Mississippi and South Carolina. Tests for a location effect on caseload chang...
متن کاملAFDC, SSI, and Welfare Reform Aggressiveness: Caseload Reductions vs. Caseload Shifting∗
Welfare reform has made receipt of cash benefits more difficult and less attractive for single mothers. We examine whether reforms of AFDC affected caseloads of another program Supplemental Security Income (SSI). We exploit state variation in welfare reform over time, and find that female-headed households in states aggressively pursuing welfare reform were 21.6 percent more likely to receive S...
متن کاملPre-1997 Trends in Welfare and Food Assistance in a National Sample of Families
Both the Food Stamp Program (FSP) and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) saw unprecedented caseload growth from the late 1980s until 1994, followed by caseload declines in the following years. These rapid caseload declines are attributed to changing macroeconomic conditions and to substantial changes in program design. First, in the early 1990s, states applied for waivers from feder...
متن کاملChanging Caseloads: Macro Influences and Micro Composition
Studies of the types of women who are still on the welfare rolls, subsequent to welfare reform, are less common than studies of the types of women who have left the rolls. The conventional wisdom is that more skilled women have left the rolls and therefore that less skilled women remain on welfare, implying that the welfare caseload should be becoming increasingly disadvantaged. However, the pr...
متن کامل