Advance Earned Income Tax Credit

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 2 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (3 download)

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Book Synopsis Advance Earned Income Tax Credit by : United States. Internal Revenue Service

Download or read book Advance Earned Income Tax Credit written by United States. Internal Revenue Service and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 2 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

It's Not Like I'm Poor

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Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520959221
Total Pages : 299 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (29 download)

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Book Synopsis It's Not Like I'm Poor by : Sarah Halpern-Meekin

Download or read book It's Not Like I'm Poor written by Sarah Halpern-Meekin and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2015-01-14 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world of welfare has changed radically. As the poor trade welfare checks for low-wage jobs, their low earnings qualify them for a hefty check come tax time—a combination of the earned income tax credit and other refunds. For many working parents this one check is like hitting the lottery, offering several months’ wages as well as the hope of investing in a better future. Drawing on interviews with 115 families, the authors look at how parents plan to use this annual cash windfall to build up savings, go back to school, and send their kids to college. However, these dreams of upward mobility are often dashed by the difficulty of trying to get by on meager wages. In accessible and engaging prose, It’s Not Like I’m Poor examines the costs and benefits of the new work-based safety net, suggesting ways to augment its strengths so that more of the working poor can realize the promise of a middle-class life.

Making Work Pay

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Publisher : Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN 13 : 1610443942
Total Pages : 413 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (14 download)

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Book Synopsis Making Work Pay by : Bruce D. Meyer

Download or read book Making Work Pay written by Bruce D. Meyer and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2002-01-10 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its inception under President Ford in 1975, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has become the largest antipoverty program for the non-elderly in the United States. In 1998, more than nineteen million families received EITC payments, and the program lifted over four million Americans above the poverty line. Despite the rapid growth of the EITC throughout the 1990s, little has been written about how the program works or how it affects low-income families. Making Work Pay provides the first full-scale examination of the EITC, exploring its effects on income distribution, poverty, work, and marriage. Making Work Pay opens with a history of the EITC—its emergence in the 1970s as a pro-work, low-cost antipoverty program and its expansion through the 1980s and 1990s. The central chapters in the volume look at the substantial impact of the EITC on work incentives in recent years and show that the program, in combination with welfare reform and a strong economy, has led to an unprecedented increase in the employment of single mothers. In one study, researchers conclude that the EITC—with its stipulation that one family member be a wage earner—was the most important change in work incentives for single mothers between 1984 and 1996, a period when the employment rate of single mothers rose sharply. Several chapters outline proposals for reforming the program, addressing the concerns by policymakers about the work disincentives that rise as benefits fall with increasing income. Finally, Making Work Pay examines how EITC recipients view the credit and what they do with it once they get it. The contributors find that not only does EITC's lump-sum payment increase consumption but it also allows recipients to make changes in economic status. Many families use the end-of-the-year payment as a form of forced savings, enabling them to save for home improvement, a new car, or other purchases to improve their lives, and providing the extra economic cushion needed to move beyond mere day-to-day survival. Comprehensive in scope, Making Work Pay is an indispensable resource for policymakers, administrators, and researchers seeking to understand the ramifications of the country's largest programs for aiding the working poor.

From Welfare to Work

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Publisher : Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN 13 : 161044258X
Total Pages : 335 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (14 download)

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Book Synopsis From Welfare to Work by : Judith M. Gueron

Download or read book From Welfare to Work written by Judith M. Gueron and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 1991-08-29 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Welfare to Work appears at a critical moment, when all fifty states are wrestling with tough budgetary and program choices as they implement the new federal welfare reforms. This book is a definitive analysis of the landmark social research that has directly informed those choices: the rigorous evaluation of programs designed to help welfare recipients become employed and self-sufficient. It discusses forty-five past and current studies, focusing on the series of seminal evaluations conducted by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation over the last fifteen years. Which of these welfare-to-work programs have worked? For whom and at what cost? In answering these key questions, the authors clearly delineate the trade-offs facing policymakers as they strive to achieve the multiple goals of alleviating poverty, helping the most disadvantaged, curtailing dependence, and effecting welfare savings. The authors present compelling evidence that the generally low-cost, primarily job search-oriented programs of the late 1980s achieved sustained earnings gains and welfare savings. However, getting people out of poverty and helping those who are most disadvantaged may require some intensive, higher-cost services such as education and training. The authors explore a range of studies now in progress that will address these and other urgent issues. They also point to encouraging results from programs that were operating in San Diego and Baltimore, which suggest the potential value of a mixed strategy: combining job search and other low-cost activities for a broad portion of the caseload with more specialized services for smaller groups. Offering both an authoritative synthesis of work already done and recommendations for future innovation, From Welfare to Work will be the standard resource and required reading for practitioners and students in the social policy, social welfare, and academic communities.

Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States

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Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 9780226533568
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (335 download)

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Book Synopsis Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States by : National Bureau of Economic Research

Download or read book Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States written by National Bureau of Economic Research and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2003-10-15 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few United States government programs are as controversial as those designed to aid the poor. From tax credits to medical assistance, aid to needy families is surrounded by debate—on what benefits should be offered, what forms they should take, and how they should be administered. The past few decades, in fact, have seen this debate lead to broad transformations of aid programs themselves, with Aid to Families with Dependent Children replaced by Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, the Earned Income Tax Credit growing from a minor program to one of the most important for low-income families, and Medicaid greatly expanding its eligibility. This volume provides a remarkable overview of how such programs actually work, offering an impressive wealth of information on the nation's nine largest "means-tested" programs—that is, those in which some test of income forms the basis for participation. For each program, contributors describe origins and goals, summarize policy histories and current rules, and discuss the recipient's characteristics as well as the different types of benefits they receive. Each chapter then provides an overview of scholarly research on each program, bringing together the results of the field's most rigorous statistical examinations. The result is a fascinating portrayal of the evolution and current state of means-tested programs, one that charts a number of shifts in emphasis—the decline of cash assistance, for instance, and the increasing emphasis on work. This exemplary portrait of the nation's safety net will be an invaluable reference for anyone interested in American social policy.

A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty

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Publisher : National Academies Press
ISBN 13 : 0309483980
Total Pages : 619 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (94 download)

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Book Synopsis A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty by : National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Download or read book A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2019-09-16 with total page 619 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The strengths and abilities children develop from infancy through adolescence are crucial for their physical, emotional, and cognitive growth, which in turn help them to achieve success in school and to become responsible, economically self-sufficient, and healthy adults. Capable, responsible, and healthy adults are clearly the foundation of a well-functioning and prosperous society, yet America's future is not as secure as it could be because millions of American children live in families with incomes below the poverty line. A wealth of evidence suggests that a lack of adequate economic resources for families with children compromises these children's ability to grow and achieve adult success, hurting them and the broader society. A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty reviews the research on linkages between child poverty and child well-being, and analyzes the poverty-reducing effects of major assistance programs directed at children and families. This report also provides policy and program recommendations for reducing the number of children living in poverty in the United States by half within 10 years.

Cradle to Kindergarten

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Publisher : Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN 13 : 1610449061
Total Pages : 285 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (14 download)

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Book Synopsis Cradle to Kindergarten by : Ajay Chaudry

Download or read book Cradle to Kindergarten written by Ajay Chaudry and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2021-03-25 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early care and education for many children in the United States is in crisis. The period between birth and kindergarten is a critical time for child development, and socioeconomic disparities that begin early in children’s lives contribute to starkly different long-term outcomes for adults. Yet, compared to other advanced economies, high-quality child care and preschool in the United States are scarce and prohibitively expensive for many middle-class and most disadvantaged families. To what extent can early-life interventions provide these children with the opportunities that their affluent peers enjoy and contribute to reduced social inequality in the long term? Cradle to Kindergarten offers a comprehensive, evidence-based strategy that diagnoses the obstacles to accessible early education and charts a path to opportunity for all children. The U.S. government invests less in children under the age of five than do most other developed nations. Most working families must seek private childcare, which means that children from low-income households, who would benefit most from high-quality early education, are the least likely to attend them. Existing policies, such as pre-kindergarten in some states are only partial solutions. To address these deficiencies, the authors propose to overhaul the early care system, beginning with a federal paid parental leave policy that provides both mothers and fathers with time and financial support after the birth of a child. They also advocate increased public benefits, including an expansion of the child care tax credit, and a new child care assurance program that subsidizes the cost of early care for low- and moderate-income families. They also propose that universal, high-quality early education in the states should start by age three, and a reform of the Head Start program that would include more intensive services for families living in areas of concentrated poverty and experiencing multiple adversities from the earliest point in these most disadvantaged children’s lives. They conclude with an implementation plan and contend that these reforms are attainable within a ten-year timeline. Reducing educational and economic inequalities requires that all children have robust opportunities to learn, fully develop their capacities, and have a fair shot at success. Cradle to Kindergarten presents a blueprint for fulfilling this promise by expanding access to educational and financial resources at a critical stage of child development.

Welfare Reform

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Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674037960
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis Welfare Reform by : Jeff GROGGER

Download or read book Welfare Reform written by Jeff GROGGER and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Welfare Reform, Jeffrey Grogger and Lynn Karoly assemble evidence from numerous studies to assess how welfare reform has affected behavior. To broaden our understanding of this wide-ranging policy reform, the authors evaluate the evidence in relation to an economic model of behavior.

Making the Work-Based Safety Net Work Better

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Publisher : Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN 13 : 1610446445
Total Pages : 361 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (14 download)

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Book Synopsis Making the Work-Based Safety Net Work Better by : Carolyn J. Heinrich

Download or read book Making the Work-Based Safety Net Work Better written by Carolyn J. Heinrich and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2009-06-02 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Work first. That is the core idea behind the 1996 welfare reform legislation. It sounds appealing, but according to Making the Work-Based Safety Net Work Better, it collides with an exceptionally difficult reality. The degree to which work provides a way out of poverty depends greatly on the ability of low-skilled people to maintain stable employment and make progress toward an income that provides an adequate standard of living. This forward-looking volume examines eight areas of the safety net where families are falling through and describes how current policies and institutions could evolve to enhance the self-sufficiency of low-income families. David Neumark analyzes a range of labor market policies and finds overwhelming evidence that the minimum wage is ineffective in promoting self-sufficiency. Neumark suggests the Earned Income Tax Credit is a much more promising policy to boost employment among single mothers and family incomes. Greg Duncan, Lisa Gennetian, and Pamela Morris find no evidence that encouraging parents to work leads to better parenting, improved psychological health, or more positive role models for children. Instead, the connection between parental work and child achievement is linked to parents' improved access to quality child care. Rebecca Blank and Brian Kovak document an alarming increase in the number of single mothers who receive neither wages nor public assistance and who are significantly more likely to suffer from medical problems of their own or of a child. Time caps and work hour requirements embedded in benefits policies leave some mothers unable to work and ineligible for cash benefits. Marcia Meyers and Janet Gornick identify another gap: low-income families tend to lose financial support and health coverage long before they earn enough to access employer-based benefits and tax provisions. They propose building "institutional bridges" that minimize discontinuities associated with changes in employment, earnings, or family structure. Steven Raphael addresses a particularly troubling weakness of the work-based safety net—its inadequate provision for the large number of individuals who are or were incarcerated in the United States. He offers tractable suggestions for policy changes that could ease their transition back into non-institutionalized society and the labor market. Making the Work-Based Safety Net Work Better shows that the "work first" approach alone isn't working and suggests specific ways the social welfare system might be modified to produce greater gains for vulnerable families.

Making Ends Meet

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Publisher : Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN 13 : 1610441753
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (14 download)

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Book Synopsis Making Ends Meet by : Kathryn Edin

Download or read book Making Ends Meet written by Kathryn Edin and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 1997-04-17 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Welfare mothers are popularly viewed as passively dependent on their checks and averse to work. Reformers across the political spectrum advocate moving these women off the welfare rolls and into the labor force as the solution to their problems. Making Ends Meet offers dramatic evidence toward a different conclusion: In the present labor market, unskilled single mothers who hold jobs are frequently worse off than those on welfare, and neither welfare nor low-wage employment alone will support a family at subsistence levels. Kathryn Edin and Laura Lein interviewed nearly four hundred welfare and low-income single mothers from cities in Massachusetts, Texas, Illinois, and South Carolina over a six year period. They learned the reality of these mothers' struggles to provide for their families: where their money comes from, what they spend it on, how they cope with their children's needs, and what hardships they suffer. Edin and Lein's careful budgetary analyses reveal that even a full range of welfare benefits—AFDC payments, food stamps, Medicaid, and housing subsidies—typically meet only three-fifths of a family's needs, and that funds for adequate food, clothing and other necessities are often lacking. Leaving welfare for work offers little hope for improvement, and in many cases threatens even greater hardship. Jobs for unskilled and semi-skilled women provide meager salaries, irregular or uncertain hours, frequent layoffs, and no promise of advancement. Mothers who work not only assume extra child care, medical, and transportation expenses but are also deprived of many of the housing and educational subsidies available to those on welfare. Regardless of whether they are on welfare or employed, virtually all these single mothers need to supplement their income with menial, off-the-books work and intermittent contributions from family, live-in boyfriends, their children's fathers, and local charities. In doing so, they pay a heavy price. Welfare mothers must work covertly to avoid losing benefits, while working mothers are forced to sacrifice even more time with their children. Making Ends Meet demonstrates compellingly why the choice between welfare and work is more complex and risky than is commonly recognized by politicians, the media, or the public. Almost all the welfare-reliant women interviewed by Edin and Lein made repeated efforts to leave welfare for work, only to be forced to return when they lost their jobs, a child became ill, or they could not cover their bills with their wages. Mothers who managed more stable employment usually benefited from a variety of mitigating circumstances such as having a relative willing to watch their children for free, regular child support payments, or very low housing, medical, or commuting costs. With first hand accounts and detailed financial data, Making Ends Meet tells the real story of the challenges, hardships, and survival strategies of America's poorest families. If this country's efforts to improve the self-sufficiency of female-headed families is to succeed, reformers will need to move beyond the myths of welfare dependency and deal with the hard realities of an unrewarding American labor market, the lack of affordable health insurance and child care for single mothers who work, and the true cost of subsistence living. Making Ends Meet is a realistic look at a world that so many would change and so few understand.

A Safety Net That Works

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Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 0844750069
Total Pages : 262 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (447 download)

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Book Synopsis A Safety Net That Works by : Robert Doar

Download or read book A Safety Net That Works written by Robert Doar and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-02-13 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an edited volume reviewing the major means-tested social programs in the United States. Each author addresses a major program or area, reviewing each area’s successes and recommending how to address shortcomings through policy change. In general, our means-tested programs do many things well, but some adjustments to each could make the system much more effective. This book provides policymakers with a broad overview of the issues at hand in each program and how to address them.

Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume I

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Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022637047X
Total Pages : 421 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (263 download)

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Book Synopsis Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume I by : Robert A. Moffitt

Download or read book Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume I written by Robert A. Moffitt and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-11-16 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "These two volumes update the earlier Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States with a discussion of the changes in means-tested government programs and the results of new research over the past decade. A number of these programs have seen substantial increases in expenditures, including Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and subsidized housing programs. For each program, the contributors describe its origins and goals, summarize its history and current rules, and discuss recipients' characteristics and the types of benefits they receive."--Publisher's description.

First-year Maternal Employment and Child Development in the First 7 Years

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 147 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (12 download)

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Book Synopsis First-year Maternal Employment and Child Development in the First 7 Years by : Jeanne Brooks-Gunn

Download or read book First-year Maternal Employment and Child Development in the First 7 Years written by Jeanne Brooks-Gunn and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Fiscal Policy

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Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 9780262011600
Total Pages : 500 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (116 download)

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Book Synopsis Fiscal Policy by : Alan J. Auerbach

Download or read book Fiscal Policy written by Alan J. Auerbach and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The eight chapters in this volume fall into three subject areas: government budget management and control, federal entitlement programs, and attempts to influence private sector behavior through tax code management.Policymakers are often hard-pressed to understand what economists have to say on policy issues, and scholars and students need to know what the latest research findings are and what questions remain unanswered. Fiscal Policy: Lessons from Economic Research presents the work of leading contributors to the public finance literature. The papers were originally presented at a 1996 conference sponsored by the Robert D. Burch Center for Tax Policy and Public Finance at the University of California, Berkeley. Although the papers are broad in scope, they are not intended to be neutral, comprehensive surveys of the literature. Instead, authors were encouraged to focus on the issues they thought most important or interesting. The conference confirmed that on some questions there is a broad consensus, and on others there is strong disagreement. Because perspectives differ, after each paper two discussants offer their own views on the subject. More so than in many conference volumes, these comments are an integral part of each presentation. The eight chapters fall into three subject areas: government budget management and control, federal entitlement programs, and attempts to influence private sector behavior through tax code management.ContributorsHenry J. Aaron, B. Douglas Bernheim, David M. Cutler, Nada Eissa, Jeffrey Frankel, William G. Gale, Roger H. Gordon, Edward M. Gramlich, Bronwyn H. Hall, Kevin A. Hassett, James R. Hines, Jr., Hilary Williamson Hoynes, R. Glenn Hubbard, Robert P. Inman, Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Robert A. Moffitt, Joseph P. Newhouse, James M. Poterba, John M. Quigley, Robert D. Reischauer, David Romer, Daniel L. Rubinfeld, John B. Shoven, Jonathan S. Skinner, Joel Slemrod, John B. Taylor

Welfare, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Labor Supply of Single Mothers

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 80 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (321 download)

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Book Synopsis Welfare, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Labor Supply of Single Mothers by : Bruce D. Meyer

Download or read book Welfare, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Labor Supply of Single Mothers written by Bruce D. Meyer and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During 1984-96, welfare and tax policy changed dramatically. The Earned Income Tax Credit was expanded, welfare benefits were cut, welfare time limits were added and cases were terminated, Medicaid for the working poor was expanded, training programs were redirected, and subsidized or free child care was expanded. Many of the program changes were intended to encourage low income women to work. During this same time period there were unprecedented increases in the employment and hours of single mothers, particularly those with young children. In this paper, we first document these large changes in policies and employment. We then examine if the policy changes are the reason for the large increases in single mothers' labor supply. We find evidence that a large share of the increase in work by single mothers can be attributed to the EITC, with smaller shares for welfare benefit reductions, welfare waivers, changes in training programs, and child care expansions. We also find that most of these policies increased hours worked. Our results indicate that financial incentives through the tax and welfare systems have substantial effects on single mothers' labor supply decisions.

Tax Policy and the Economy

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 200 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Tax Policy and the Economy by :

Download or read book Tax Policy and the Economy written by and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Focus on Single-Parent Families

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 0313379513
Total Pages : 310 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (133 download)

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Book Synopsis Focus on Single-Parent Families by : Annice Yarber

Download or read book Focus on Single-Parent Families written by Annice Yarber and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-02-26 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking collection of writings on the growing phenomenon of single-parent families in the United States, and how it impacts society as a whole. Focus on Single-Parent Families: Past, Present, and Future brings together in one volume a range of cutting-edge research articles and essays on what has become the most dynamic change in family structure in U.S. history. It is the only resource to make the most insightful and important work being done on the single-parent family phenomena accessible to general readers. Focus on Single-Parent Families helps readers go beyond the stereotypes and look closely at the complexity of families with one parent and consider their place in society. It encompasses the wide variety of households with a single parent—a family structure that promises to continue to grow and diversify. Throughout, the book gauges the impact of the increasing number of single-parent families on the nation as a whole, particularly in regard to policies concerning family welfare, children's services and health care, schools, and other essential social institutions.