The Interaction of Metropolitan Area Costs and the Federal Earned Income Tax Credit: One Size Fits All?

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The Interaction of Metropolitan Area Costs and the Federal Earned Income Tax Credit: One Size Fits All?

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Katie Fitzpatrick () (Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-1020)
Jeffrey P. Thompson () (Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-1020)

Abstract

The Federal Earned Income Tax Credoit (EITC) contributed to increasing employment rates for single women during the 1990s. This paper expands on what is known about the labor supply response to the EITC by exploiting differences in the cost-of-living faced by potentially eligible recipients in different geographic areas. Using the 1993 EITC expansion, we demonstrate that the labor supply response varies considerably with metropolitan area cost-of-living. We identify an increase in labor force participation among single mothers of as much as 10 percentage points in the lowest cost metropolitan areas. There is no discernable participation response in metropolitan areas with the highest housing costs, where approximately 40 of the population lives. We find little response along the intensive margin, regardless of the costs in the metropolitan area. We conclude that the welfare-enhancing effects of the EITC are undermined by the interaction of the program's fixed national rules and geographic variation in wages and cost of living. In addition, our findings suggest that the federal EITC does little to reduce joblessness in many of the nation's largest cities.

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Paper provided by Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University in its series Center for Policy Research Working Papers with number 110.

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Length: 52 pages
Date of creation: Sep 2008
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:max:cprwps:110

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - General Welfare
J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
R23 - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

NEP-ALL-2009-01-17 (All new papers)
NEP-GEO-2009-01-17 (Economic Geography)
NEP-URE-2009-01-17 (Urban & Real Estate Economics)

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