ECONOMIC REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT

Figure 4-20
Increase in Probability of Survival Past Age 60-80 Among Mothers' Pension
Recipients, 1965—2012
Percent
18
16
14
12
10
14
15
8
6
6
4
2
0
Age 60 Age 70 Age 80
Survival Age
Note: Based on specification that includes individual controls and county and cohort fixed effects.
Increase in survival calculated as a percent of the average survival rate of rejected applicants.
Source: Aizer et al. (2014).
early- to mid-adulthood. Documenting that the most common reason for
rejection was “insufficient need,” the authors argue their results provide a
lower-bound estimate of the program’s effects.
The positive impacts associated with the EITC may operate through
multiple channels. Most obvious is the increase in income that families
experience. A less obvious channel for the positive impacts could be through
increases in maternal labor supply that resulted from EITC expansions or
via other policy changes that occurred at the same time as those expansions
(Nichols and Rothstein 2015). It may be that at least some of the effects captured
in the studies operate through the less obvious channels. Studies that
use variation based on EITC expansions over time may be especially likely
to capture some effects associated with other policy changes. For example,
the 1991 EITC expansions coincide with an increase in the minimum wage,
and the 1996 expansions coincide with welfare reform.
Some studies suggest that EITC impacts may differ somewhat by gender,
since a lower baseline level of health and human capital among young
boys may make income targeted toward these investments in them particularly
impactful. For example, a study of Canadian child benefits finds that
increases in benefits lead to larger improvements in education and physical
health variables for boys (Milligan and Stabile 2011).
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