A new idea for welfare reform

Michael Keane ()

Quarterly Review, 1995, vol. 19, issue Spr, 2-28

Abstract: This article analyzes several proposals to build work incentives into the U.S. welfare system. It concludes that the most cost effective way to do that is to offer a work subsidy to all low-income single parents?in other words, to simply pay them for working in the labor market. This conclusion is based on a model of the labor force participation behavior of low-income single mothers that the author developed with Robert Moffitt. Among the proposals evaluated in the article, besides the work subsidy, are proposals to reduce the rate that welfare benefits are reduced when welfare recipients work, to provide wage subsidies to low-wage workers, to expand the earned income tax credit, and to subsidize the fixed costs of working.

Keywords: Welfare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1995
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://minneapolisfed.org/research/qr/qr1921.pdf (application/pdf)
http://minneapolisfed.org/research/qr/qr1921.html (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedmqr:y:1995:i:spr:p:2-28:n:v.19no.2

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Quarterly Review from Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kate Hansel ().