A Patchwork Safety Net: A Survey of Cliometric Studies of Income Maintenance Programs in the United States in the First Half of the Twentieth Century / Price V. Fishback, Samuel Allen, Jonathan Fox, Brendan Livingston.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fishback, Price V.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Allen, Samuel.

Fox, Jonathan.

Livingston, Brendan.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w15696.

NBER working paper series no. w15696

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

A Patchwork Safety Net

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2010.

Summary:

Social welfare programs in the United States are designed to serve as safety nets for people in hard times, in contrast with the universal approach found in many other developed western nations. In a survey of Cliometric studies of social welfare programs in the U.S., we examine the variation in the safety net in the U.S. across states in the 20th century, the determinants of the variation, and its impact on socioeconomic outcomes. The U.S. has always displayed substantial variation in the extent of the safety net because the features of most public social welfare programs are and were determined by local and state governments, even after the federal government became involved. Differences across states persist strongly for typically a decade, although the persistence weakens with time, and there are some periods when federal intervention led to a re-ordering. The rankings of state benefits differs from program to program, and economic and political factors have different weights in determining benefit levels in panel data estimation of their effects. Variation in benefits across programs during the early 1900s had significant impact on labor markets, economic activity, family formation, death rates, and crime.

Notes:

Print version record

January 2010.