This paper examines the degree to which after-tax wages, benefit guarantees, child care expenses, and other factors affect labor market participation and transfer program participation. We first carefully model the budget constraints that families face using a SIPP-based microsimulation model...

This paper investigates the effects of economic incentives on divorce and remarriage behavior. Before December 1977, the Social Security law entitled divorcees to claim auxiliary benefits on their ex-spouse’s record only if the marriage lasted at least 20 years. One of the 1977 amendments of...

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) could either penalize or subsidize marriage. Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation and controlling for individual fixed effects and the endogeneity of the EITC, we find that, among a sample of married women with children, those who...

The Social Security program, like the federal income tax system, is not marriage neutral. Provisions in each public program, in effect, subsidize or penalize marriage. In this paper, we examine marriage penalties associated with Social Security's child–in–care benefits. This program provides...

The transfer system typically has large marriage disincentives, while the income tax system is likely to subsidize marriage for many low-income families. In other words, the tax system may mitigate the loss of transfer benefits associated with marriage. The relevance of the income tax system for...