The Distribution of a Federal Entitlement: The Case of Adoption Assistance

Mary Hansen ()
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Mary Hansen: Department of Economics, American University

No 2006-13, Working Papers from American University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Adoption assistance entitlements support the adoptions of children whose birth parents’ rights have been severed after abuse or neglect. The subsidies are meant to offset the extra cost to adoptive families of raising children whose adverse experiences have left them with special physical, emotional, or behavioral needs. Previous studies of adoption assistance are limited in scope; I use administrative data on all recorded adoptions from foster care from 1996 through 2003 to examine the distribution of adoption assistance across and within states. The state-tostate variation payments is large, even after controlling for differences in the cost of living. Moreover, although adoption assistance is an entitlement for children, payments made within many states are systematically correlated with the characteristics of adoptive families. There is substantial evidence that the state administration of this federal entitlement leads to unequal treatment of similar children.

Keywords: Adoption; adoption assistance; special needs; single parents; foster parents (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J18 K39 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2006-10
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https://doi.org/10.17606/wxb3-rt89 First version, 2006 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:amu:wpaper:1306

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