This article uses the political history and pre-history of the EITC to describe how the politics of welfare reform influence tax policies that function as social policy. It suggests that the economic tradeoffs inherent in the formulation of tax-transfer programs are also political tradeoffs. It...

Despite a broad consensus on the need to take into account the value of public services in distributional analysis, there is little reliable evidence on how the inclusion of such non-cash income actually affects poverty and inequality estimates. In particular, the equivalence scales applied to...

This paper presents our findings on the knowledge and use of the 1997 Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) based on a sample of Chicago area households with children that filed tax returns in the winter and spring of 1998. Respondents reported in detail about using their federal tax refunds...

Despite a broad consensus on the need to take into account the value of public services in distributional analysis, there is little reliable evidence on how the inclusion of such non-cash income actually affects poverty and inequality estimates. In particular, the equivalence scales applied to...

In this paper, we present a new model for constructing poverty lines. The model uses consumer theory to construct both food and non-food poverty thresholds. Although one cannot completely eliminate the value judgments inherent in the construction of poverty thresholds, this model helps to make...

In this paper we challenge the conventional wisdom that using workfare as a supplementary screening device to means-testing is socially undesirable when the overnment objective is welfarist, namely, to ensure that all members of society will attain some minimal level of utility. Our argument...