EHP: Tax Policy and Low-Wage Labor Markets: New Work on Employment, Effectiveness and Administration

本项目的第一部分将提供有关针对低收入家庭的税收政策对就业影响的新信息。第二部分将提供有关福利政策选择、税收政策和经济增长在提高贫困家庭收入方面的相对有效性的新信息。第三部分将提供新的信息，说明低所得税规定引起的行政问题的程度。许多先前的研究发现，EITC对就业有巨大的积极影响。但是，这项工作大部分使用间接识别策略，它还没有能够验证与税收数据，EITC导致观察到的就业模式。我们研究的就业效果EITC使用的样本加州成年人谁收到AFDC或TANF之间的某个时候1987年和2000年。我们提出的工作将是第一个使用样本成员是否实际提交了纳税申报表并申请EITC的信息的研究。使用与早期研究类似的识别策略，PI记录了各组的就业模式，无论是在原始数据中还是在回归调整后的估计中，都与显著的，积极的EITC就业效应相一致。然而，使用税收数据的测试提出了其他人报告的EITC就业影响是否实际上是由信贷引起的问题。 PI还将开展额外的工作，以检查初步结果的有效性，并帮助我们的工作与过去的EITC就业研究相协调。低技能单身母亲的就业率在20世纪90年代急剧上升，福利案件急剧下降。关于造成这些变化的因素的相对重要性，仍然存在相当大的不确定性。本课题系统地分析了福利改革的相对重要性、EITC以及劳动力需求在理解就业和福利使用模式中的作用。四个特点使这项工作很有前途。税收数据有助于识别EITC效应。PI使用了比其他论文更精确的劳动力市场特征的地理测量。他们使用了比其他论文更详细的州（县）福利计划"治疗"的特征。最后，通过对超过300万名成年人的调查，考察了在不同的劳动力市场中，福利和税收政策对就业和福利使用的影响。第三部分考察了家庭对福利和税收制度的反应，以及对收入和家庭状况的不准确报告。PI使用统计模型来研究向福利和税务当局报告的收入。他们还将完成一项独特的研究，审查家庭结构的误报，这是不遵守EITC的最大单一来源。这项工作将直接为决策提供信息。我们在这项研究中的合作伙伴包括美国国税局、加州特许经营税局和威斯康星州税务局。他们（在严格的保密协议下）提供数据，并承担数据构建和处理的大部分成本，因为他们相信研究有望提高税收政策的有效性和管理。其次，这项工作需要对数据基础设施进行大量投资。PI团队将继续向其他研究人员提供数据，除非保密限制在法律上阻止他们这样做。

Part 1 of this project will provide new information on the employment effects of tax policies targeted to low-income families. Part 2 will produce new information on the relative effectiveness of welfare policy choices, tax policy, and economic growth in enhancing the incomes of poor families. And part 3 will develop new information on the degree to which administrative problems arise with low income tax provisions. Many previous studies find the EITC has large, positive employment effects. But much of this work uses indirect identification strategies and it has not been able to verify with tax data that the EITC causes the observed employment patterns. We examine the employment effects of the EITC using a sample of California adults who received AFDC or TANF sometime between 1987 and 2000. Our proposed work will be the first study to use information on whether sample members actually filed a tax return and claimed the EITC. Using an identification strategy similar to that used by earlier studies, the PIs document employment patterns across groups, both in the raw data and in regression-adjusted estimates, that are consistent with significant, positive EITC employment effects. Tests using tax data, however, raise questions about whether the EITC employment effects reported by others are in fact caused by the credit. The PIs will also carry out additional work to examine the validity of the preliminary results and help reconcile our work with past EITC employment studies.Employment rates of low-skilled single mothers increased sharply in the 1990s and welfare caseloads declined precipitously. Considerable uncertainty remains about the relative importance of factors accounting for these changes. This project is a systematic analysis of the relative importance of welfare reform, the EITC, and the role of labor demand in understanding patterns of employment and welfare use. Four features make this proposed work promising. Tax data improve the identification of EITC effects. The PIs use more geographically precise measures of labor market characteristics than other papers. And they use much more detailed characterizations of the "treatments" of state (and county) welfare programs than other papers. Finally, samples exceeding 3 million adults allow us to examine interactions in the way welfare and tax policy influence employment and welfare use in different labor market.Part 3 of the project examines the extent to which families respond to welfare program and tax system incentives to inaccurately report their income or household circumstances. The PIs use statistical models to study income reporting to welfare and tax authorities. They will also complete a unique study that examines misreporting of family structure, the largest single source of EITC non-compliance.The work will directly inform policymaking. Our partners in this research include the Internal Revenue Service, California Franchise Tax Board, and the Wisconsin Department of Revenue. They are making data available to (under strict confidentiality agreements) and underwriting much of the cost of data construction and processing, because they are convinced the research promises to improve the tax policy effectiveness and administration. Second, this work has required a substantial investment in data infrastructure. The PI team will continue to make data available to other researchers, except in cases where confidentiality restrictions legally prevent them from doing so.