ECONOMIC REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT

Percent
60
Figure 3-iv
Percent of Families with Children Claiming
the Earned Income Tax Credit, 1989–2006
50
40
30
20
10
0
1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 1989–2006
Source: Dowd and Horowitz (2011).
provisions that provide greatest value to those who would otherwise be
uninsured. In the decade prior to the enactment of the ACA, roughly
20 percent of the population was uninsured for at least one month in
any particular year and thus stood to benefit from the law’s coverage
provisions during that year (see Figure 3-iii). However, over the course
of the decade as a whole, more than twice as many people—roughly half
the population—were uninsured for at least one month and thus would
have had the opportunity to benefit from the law’s coverage expansion.
Similarly, about 25 percent of families with children claim the EITC in
any given year, but 50 percent claim the EITC at some point during a
20-year period (Figure 3-iv).
In this way, the inequality-reducing tax and health care policies
that the President has signed into law will ultimately benefit a much
larger fraction of working and middle-class Americans than they do in a
single year, as do existing policies like unemployment insurance and the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
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