RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Alan Berube, David Park and Elizabeth Kneebone, June 05, 2008, The Brookings Institution
Slowed economic growth and rising prices for necessities like food, transportation, and child care threaten to exacerbate the challenges already facing America's low-income workers and their families. The federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) could do more to help close the growing gap between stagnant wages and rising prices. "Metro Raise" demonstrates how an expanded and modernized EITC would benefit families and communities in the nation's major metropolitan areas. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Stephen D. Holt, June 05, 2008, The Brookings Institution
Many low-income working families would benefit from a streamlined ability to access the proceeds of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) throughout the year as they pay for ongoing expenses like housing, child care, and transportation. The federal government should consider adopting a model for direct periodic payment of the EITC, as most other countries with in-work tax credits provide. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Elizabeth Kneebone, April 14, 2008, The Brookings Institution
In this report, Elizbeth Kneebone examines the changing distribution of Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) recipients across large cites and suburbs, smaller metro areas, and rural communities throughout the country. While taxpayers in large cities and rural areas were the most likely to claim the EITC in 2005, more than one-third of EITC filers lived in the suburbs of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Julia B. Isaacs, March 2008, Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
This study by Brookings expert Julia Isaacs compares the Food Stamp Program with eight other public assistance programs across four measures of program effectiveness—administrative costs, error payments, program access, and benefit targeting. Read More
VIDEO
Rebecca M. Blank, Robert Carmona and Jack Kemp, December 12, 2007
On December 12, the Hamilton Project at Brookings hosted a two-part forum at the National Press Club on ways to encourage, facilitate and reward work. A new Hamilton Project strategy paper and three new discussion papers were highlighted.
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
John Karl Scholz, December 2007, Hamilton Project Discussion Paper
To address a few problems with low-income families, John Karl Scholz proposes a two-part policy designed to increase the return to work. He argues that increasing the return to work for childless low-skilled workers will lower unemployment rates and will improve other social benefits. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Ron Haskins, Fall 2007, Future of Children Policy Brief
Wage subsidies and work requirements hold the promise of alleviating many social problems, especially poverty. Brookings’s Ron Haskins writes about counteracting the negative behaviors of adolescent boys and young men in a new brief. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Alan Berube, July 13, 2007, Congressional Staff organized by Living Cities
Though most do not recognize it as an "urban" program, the Earned Income Tax Credit provides significant benefits to families in cities and suburbs, and stimulates local economic activity. In this presentation to Congressional staff organized by Living Cities, Alan Berube examines what Members can do to maximize the benefits of the EITC for lower-income families and communities in their districts. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Elizabeth Kneebone, April 2007, The Brookings Institution
In this report, Elizabeth Kneebone examines how receipt of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) increased between 2000 and 2004 in response to economic challenges. Increases were largest in the suburbs of the nation's largest metropolitan areas, which today contain 2.4 million more EITC recipients than central cities. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Ron Haskins, February 22, 2007, Testimony before the Maryland House of Delegates, Committee on Ways and Means
Testimony by Ron Haskins (2/22/07) Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Alan Berube, November 2006, The Brookings Institution
Local and regional leaders across the U.S. have come to view the Earned Income Tax Credit as a critical investment in their economies. This paper explores the benefits to families and communities that can result from actions to realize the full potential of the credit.
Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Alan Berube, October 12, 2006, National Community Tax Coalition
In this presentation at the National Community Tax Coalition annual conference, Alan Berube discusses the Brookings interactive tax data website, and how local coalitions can use the data to measure, target, and expand the services they provide to lower-income taxpayers. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Matt Fellowes, August 07, 2006, The Detroit Free Press
Increasing in the minimum wage has to be paired with a national campaign to lower the higher prices being paid by the poor today. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Margy Waller and Shawn Fremstad, August 2006, The Brookings Institution
This analysis reviews spending decisions nationwide and in three states, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, under the Temporary Assistance program since its enactment in 1996. Read More