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A comparison of poverty trends and policy impacts for working families using different poverty indexes

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Author Info
Robert H. DeFina
Abstract

This study provides empirical evidence on recent trends in poverty among working families based on the headcount rate and a broader alternative that incorporates the headcount rate, the depth of poverty, and income inequality among the poor. Estimates reveal that the indexes produce significantly different trends. The headcount rate indicates a reduction in overall working poverty for the sample period, while the alternative index showed no statistically significant change. The same result was found for various population subgroups. Decompositions of the index changes show that tax changes contributed to lower values for both the headcount rate and the alternative index, largely due to recent expansions of the earned income tax credit. Changes in transfer payments added to measured poverty, mirroring the retrenchment of welfare and other transfer programs. Shifts in market-based income decreased both indexes.

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Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia in its series Working Papers with number 07-13.

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Date of creation: 2007
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedpwp:07-13

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Keywords: Poverty

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  1. Foster, James E & Shorrocks, Anthony F, 1991. "Subgroup Consistent Poverty Indices," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(3), pages 687-709, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Moffitt, Robert, 1992. "Incentive Effects of the U.S. Welfare System: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(1), pages 1-61, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Bishop, John A & Formby, John P & Zheng, Buhong, 1999. "Distribution Sensitive Measures of Poverty in the United States," Review of Social Economy, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 57(3), pages 306-43, September.
  4. Osberg, L & Xu, K, 1997. "International Comparisons of Poverty Intensity : Index Decomposition and Bootstrap Inference," Department of Economics at Dalhousie University working papers archive 97-03, Dalhousie, Department of Economics.
  5. Triest, Robert K, 1998. "Has Poverty Gotten Worse?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 97-114, Winter. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Rebecca M. Blank, 2002. "Evaluating Welfare Reform in the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(4), pages 1105-1166, December.
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  7. Zheng, Buhong, 1997. " Aggregate Poverty Measures," Journal of Economic Surveys, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 11(2), pages 123-62, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Eissa, Nada & Liebman, Jeffrey B, 1996. "Labor Supply Response to the Earned Income Tax Credit," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 111(2), pages 605-37, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Card, David, 2001. "Immigrant Inflows, Native Outflows, and the Local Labor Market Impacts of Higher Immigration," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(1), pages 22-64, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Bishop, John A & Chow, K Victor & Zheng, Buhong, 1995. "Statistical Inference and Decomposable Poverty Measures," Bulletin of Economic Research, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(4), pages 329-40, October.
  11. Card, David, 1996. "The Effect of Unions on the Structure of Wages: A Longitudinal Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(4), pages 957-79, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Sen, Amartya K, 1976. "Poverty: An Ordinal Approach to Measurement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(2), pages 219-31, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Kakwani, Nanak, 1993. "Statistical Inference in the Measurement of Poverty," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 75(4), pages 632-39, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Foster, James & Greer, Joel & Thorbecke, Erik, 1984. "A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 761-66, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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