welfare dynamics under time limits
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Welfare Dynamics under Time Limits. Jeffrey Grogger Charles Michalopoulos Evrim Aydin-Saher. PRWORA (1996) AFDC TANF → Time Limits Prediction: - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Welfare Dynamics under Time Limits
Jeffrey Grogger
Charles Michalopoulos
Evrim Aydin-Saher
PRWORA (1996)
AFDC TANF → Time Limits
Prediction:
Incentive to conserve welfare benefits for future use
should be stronger, younger the youngest child in the
family.
Welfare acts as insurance used to smooth consumption in lifetime utility maximization.
Longer the horizon, higher the value of retaining eligibility for such insurance.
Eligible for welfare as long as youngest child < 18 years old.
Families with youngest children have longest eligibility horizons
Fang & Keane (2004) : “option value”
Use welfare if benefit exceeds earnings at least by the
option value of preserving a month of eligibility.
Florida Family Transition Program (FTP)
Randomized experiment, (applying or recertifying), Waiver from AFDC program rules, Recruitment : May 1994 – October 1996, Escambia County (Pensacola) Time-limit 24 months
Exception : poor families → 36 months (48% of sample) Follow single-parent families for 24 months after random
assignment
Sample families could not exhaust benefits within
the 24-month follow up period.
!
• FTP : Time limits
Financial incentives (FI)
Enhanced employment & training services (ES)
• MWRA exemption age different for the groups
• FTP MWRA : recipient /case manager ratio low
enhanced employment & training services
• All else equal, FI and ES expected to welfare use
Estimation
1. Difference-in-difference estimates
2. Regression Estimates I. Step Function specification II. Linear Interaction specification Advantages:
1. Controlling for personal characteristics2. Reducing variance of error term – covariates3. Alternative functional forms for Age-FTP
interaction
Difference-in-difference Methodology
Pre-treatment Post-treatment
Treated AFDC <15 FTP <15
Control AFDC 15+ FTP 15+
difference
_ −0.086
DD
DD Assumptions:
• “parallel trends”
• constant treatment effects
• additivitytime
treatment
effect
Assumptions :
1. No time-limit effects on families over the threshold age 16 for 24-month time-limit 15 for 36-month time-limit
2. Effects of individual reforms are additive : FI + ES + TL
3. Effects of FI and ES are age-invariant. Evidence:
i. National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Services (NEWWS)ii. Vermont Welfare Restructuring Project (WRP)iii. Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP)
Age groups:
• Group 0 : 6 months - 2 years• Group 1 : 3 - 5 years• Group 2 : 6 -10 years• Group 3 : 11 - 14/15 years• Group 4 : 15/16 - 17 years
MWRA exemptions
unable to identify effects on Group 0
Difference-in-difference Estimates
FTP1 = 0.001
FTP2 = − 0.031
FTP3 = 0.03
FTP4= 0.086
TL + FI + ES
FI + ES
FTP4 > 0 & significant → FI & ES welfare use, all else equal
FTP Total = 0.003 → full sample effect masks variation in age group effects
DD1, DD2, DD3 < 0
DD2 < DD3 (Child care constraints?) DD2 < DD1 control for pre-sample
welfare use → G2 used less
DD1 = FTP1 – FTP4 = - 0.085
DD2 = FTP2 – FTP4 = - 0.117
DD3 = FTP3 – FTP4 = - 0.031
Age-Invariance Assumption
Time-limit Effects
I. Step Function Specification
yit = α + α0A0it + α1A1it + α2A2it + α3A3it +
+τ0A0itEi + τTL1A1itEi + τTL
2A2itEi + τTL3A3itEi +
+ τEi + Xitβ + μi + εit
Ajit = 1 if youngest child in ith family falls in group j at time t
Ei = 1 if family i is in FTP group
Xit : exogenous regressors;
( mother’s age, black/white, 2/3 year time limit, number of children in family, mother’s years of schooling, pre-sample welfare use, quarters of employment pre-assignment etc.)
II. Linear Interaction Specification
yit = α + α0A0it + α1Ait + τ0A0itEi + τTL1A′
itEi + τEi + Xitβ + μi + εit
[Ait − threshold age] if 3 ≤ Ait < threshold age
0 otherwise
• Family effects (μ) → group-wise dependence
→ OLS std errors downward biased• Binary dependent variable → heteroskedasticity
Huber-White Covariance Matrix Estimator
( Heteroskedasticity-Robust Standard Errors )
A′it =
Step Function Results
• G0 6.9 %-pt G0 MWRA → welfare use
G1 7.4 %-pt (TYCS, vocational training)
• τTL1 < τTL
2 < τTL3
non-price barriers to child care preschool families cannot fully respond to time-limits
All groups receive child care subsidies.
Linear Interaction Results
+1 year age 0.7 %-pts
“reduction in likelihood of
welfare use”
36-month, 5 year old → 7 %-pts reduction
36-month, 13 year old → 1.4 %-pts reduction
Main results:
Time-limits substantially reduced welfare use among families with young children.
Anticipatory responses to time-limits, with leaving reducing welfare use well before they could have exhausted their benefits.
Additional Estimates
1. Prior welfare use
• 12 months use & 24 months use – focus most dependent group
2. Shorter follow-up period - 12 months
3. Robustness
• urban/rural - job market differences
• post-TANF & FTP-TANF – behavioural changes - Oct 1996
• out-of-county mobility – no differential mobility between groups
• FI & age-invariance
• ES & age-invariance
Conclusion
• Families with younger ‘youngest children’ less likely to use welfare than families with older ‘youngest children’.
• FTP time-limits would have reduced welfare receipt by 16%
(reductions weighted by age distributions).
Implication
• Poverty at younger age → greater adverse effects on educational attainment
• Early poverty – ability, adolescent poverty – achievement (Guo, 1998)
• Income poverty – preschool ability, later achievement (Duncan et al. 1998)
If welfare reductions
income reductions
policies withage-neutral effects
Further studies
• Grogger (2003) : March CPS (1978−99)
relative to threshold families, ‘3 years old’ families
welfare use 6.6 %-pts, employment 3.4 %-pts
• Grogger (2004) : March CPS (1978−99)
time-limits reduce welfare use by 6−7 %
• Fang and Keane (2004) : March CPS (1980−2002)
welfare participation rate 23%-pts
time-limits 11% of this decrease.