THE EFFECT OF WELFARE ON WORK AND
MARRIAGE: A VIEW FROM THE STATES
Mickey Hepner and W. Robert Reed
Over the past 20 years, the U.S transfer system has seen a substan-
tial shift in responsibility from the federal government to state gov-
ernments. States have been given increased flexibility in setting pa-
rameters for income assistance, childcare assistance, and health care
programs, among others. Despite this increased responsibility, state
policymakers are often only dimly aware of the consequences of their
decisions for work and family structure incentives.
This study examines the impact of state-determined tax and trans-
fer parameters on work and family structure incentives for welfare
recipients. While our work focuses on tax and transfer programs in
place during July 1999 in the state of Oklahoma, we believe that the
general results of our analysis are applicable elsewhere. In particular,
we demonstrate how state-determined programs often have large
work and family structure disincentives. While one could imagine that
these disincentives represent strategic tradeoffs made in pursuit of
other goals, our experience suggests that this is rarely the case: Policy-
makers are frequently unaware of the existence of these tradeoffs. It
is our hope that this study will stimulate a greater appreciation
of the potential consequences that state-determined programs have
for the work and family structure decisions of public assistance re-
cipients.
Cato Journal, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Fall 2004). Copyright © Cato Institute. All rights
reserved.
Mickey Hepner is Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Central Oklahoma,
and W. Robert Reed is Professor of Economics at the University of Oklahoma. The authors
thank Tom Daxon, former Director of the Oklahoma Office of State Finance (OSF), and
Howard Hendrick, former Director of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, for
making themselves and their staffs available to answer questions and provide feedback on this
research; Alison Fraser, Jauna Head, and Sherri Fair of OSF for initiating this study; Greg Acs,
Linda Giannarelli, Bob Lerman, and seminar participants at the Urban Institute for valuable
feedback on this research; and especially Ken Finegold of the Urban Institute for helpful
comments on an earlier version of this study. The OSF financially supported this research.
349
CATO JOURNAL
A major obstacle in identifying the incentives and disincentives of
state-determined programs lies in the fact that incentive effects can
vary widely by program participation and family characteristics. We
follow the previous literature in working through a small set of com-
mon scenarios meant to represent typical experiences of welfare re-
cipients. However, this study also includes an Excel spreadsheet pro-
gram that makes available to interested readers the complete set of
permutations for program participation and family characteristics.
This spreadsheet may be downloaded from the Web site: http://faculty-
staff.ou.edu/R/William.R.Reed-1/Papers/index.html. Once down-
loaded, a user-friendly interface allows the reader to experiment with
alternative combinations of program participation and family charac-
teristics. In addition to allowing the reader to investigate scenarios
that may be of special interest, it also allows one to check our claim
that the incentive effects we identify are robust for a wide variety of
program participation and family characteristic scenarios. We believe
this represents a valuable innovation to the existing literature.
A further complication lies in accounting for the complicated in-
teractions between programs. Our study is unique in that it is
" the most extensive study of tax and transfer programs
" the only study to include childcare subsidies
" the only study other than Acs et al. (1998) to calculate realistic
childcare expense schedules based on market rates
" the only study to incorporate changes that occurred after both
PRWORA1 and SCHIP2
1
PRWORA stands for the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation
Act of 1996. This legislation abolished the Aid to Families with Dependent Children
(AFDC) program and replaced it with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).
Under TANF, states receive a fixed federal grant with increased flexibility to expend the
funds, along with enhanced ability to determine eligibility requirements, implement finan-
cial work incentives, and impose sanctions (U.S. House of Representatives 1998). The
passage of PRWORA also changed the federal role in childcare subsidy programs. Before
PRWORA, there were four major federal programs designed to provide childcare services
to low-income families. Each program established its own rules for eligibility, time limits,
and work requirements. PRWORA, however, incorporated all federal childcare assistance
programs into the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), which provides funds to all
50 states plus the District of Columbia to help finance their state childcare programs. With
the CCDF, states have increased discretion over the structure of their childcare assistance
programs. Consequently, there is a wide disparity among the states, although all states assist
some low-income families (Long et al. 1998).
2
SCHIP stands for the State Children s Health Insurance Program. This program allows
states to use federal funds to finance expansions of health care coverage to low-income
children. Under SCHIP, states have the discretion to either expand Medicaid eligibility for
low-income children, to establish a non-Medicaid health care program for low-income
350
EFFECT OF WELFARE ON WORK AND MARRIAGE
" the only study to examine the incentive effects of welfare on both
work and marriage.
This study first examines the impact of tax and transfer programs on
work incentives, and then examines the impact on family structure
incentives.
Work Incentives for a Female-Headed Household
with Two Children
We begin by illustrating the work incentives for a representative
family: a single mother with two preschool children, ages 1 and 3,
living in Oklahoma in July of 1999. We assume that she participates
in the following set of transfer programs as long as she is eligible:
Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), Food Stamps,
Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and Oklahoma s Day-
care Subsidy Program. Each of these programs enjoys wide partici-
pation among public assistance recipients.3
Relationship between Earned Income and Total Resources
Table 1 shows this mother s total resources (i.e., the dollar value of
her income and benefits net of taxes, work, and daycare expenses) for
alternative wage and hours-of-work possibilities.4 Column 1 shows
her total monthly income and benefits assuming that she does not
work. Column 2 reports total income and benefits assuming that she
children who do not qualify for Medicaid, or to implement a program that combines these
two options (The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 2000). Of the 50 states plus
the District of Columbia, 17 have expanded their Medicaid programs, 16 have opted to
create a new health care program, and 18 have chosen to implement a combination of new
and expanded programs (The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 2002).
3
U.S. House of Representatives (1998: 409) discusses participation in multiple means-
tested programs. They cite unpublished data from the U.S. Census Bureau that shows that
in 1995, 4.5 million households included an individual who received cash welfare assistance.
Of those households, 82.6 percent included an individual who received Food Stamps, and
97.5 percent included an individual who received Medicaid. According to the Internal
Revenue Service (2000), more than 15 million individuals received the EITC in 1999.
Finally, every state currently offers some form of a childcare subsidy for low-income
families (Long et al. 1998).
4
Our analysis values Food Stamps benefits at their cash equivalent values. Medicaid ben-
efits are valued at the Medicaid capitation rates. This is the commonly employed approach
in the literature for valuing in-kind benefits, including Wilson and Cline (1994), Dickert,
Houser, and Scholz (1994), Giannarelli and Steuerle (1995), Hoynes (1997), Dickert-
Conlin and Houser (1998), and Acs et al. (1998). Additional details concerning our calcu-
lations are discussed in an extended version of this study that may be downloaded from the
Web site: http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/R/William.R.Reed-1/Papers/index.html.
351
TABLE 1
INCOME AND BENEFIT CALCULATIONS FOR A FEMALE-HEADED HOUSEHOLD WITH TWO CHILDREN AND
PARTICIPATION IN TANF, FOOD STAMPS, MEDICAID, EITC, AND DAYCARE SUBSIDY PROGRAMa
Mother s Hourly Wage
NWb $5.15 PTc $5.15 $6 $7 $8
Monthly Work Income 0 446 893 1,040 1,213 1,387
Taxes
Federal income taxes 0 0 0 0 0 26
State income taxes 0 1 5 8 13 19
FICA taxes 0 34 68 80 93 106
Expenses
Total childcare costs 0 390 779 779 779 779
Childcare copay 0 0 32 68 107 150
Work expenses 0 34 67 67 67 67
Income after Taxes,
Childcare Copay, and
Work Expenses 0 378 720 818 934 1,019
TANF 292 129 0000
Food Stamps 329 311 223 186 141 98
Medicaid 207 207 121 121 121 121
EITC 0 179 318 318 281 245
Total Resources 828 1,204 1,381 1,442 1,476 1,482
Effective Marginal Tax
Rates (MTRs) (%) 16 60 59 80 97 93
352
C
ATO
J
OURNAL
$9 $10 $11 $12 $13 $14 $15
Monthly Work Income 1,560 1,733 1,907 2,080 2,253 2,427 2,600
Taxes
Federal income taxes 52 78 103 130 155 182 208
State income taxes 28 37 47 58 69 81 92
FICA taxes 119 133 146 159 172 186 199
Expenses
Total childcare costs 779 779 779 779 779 779 779
Childcare copay 176 192 209 779 779 779 779
Work expenses 67 67 67 67 67 67 67
Income after Taxes,
Childcare Copay, and
Work Expenses 1,118 1,227 1,334 887 1,011 1,133 1,255
TANF 0000000
Food Stamps 48 1100000
Medicaid 121 121 121 121000
EITC 208 171 135 98 62 26 0
Total Resources 1,495 1,529 1,590 1,106 1,073 1,158 1,255
Effective Marginal Tax
Rates (MTRs) (%) 80 65 379 119 51 44 29
a
This table calculates work incentives for a representative family consisting of a single mother with two children, ages 1 and 3. Except for
NW and $5.15 PT, all income categories assume the mother works 40 hours per week.
b
NW stands for mother does not work.
c
$5.15 PT stands for mother works 20 hours per week (part-time) earning $5.15/hour.
E
FFECT OF
W
ELFARE ON
W
ORK AND
M
ARRIAGE
353
CATO JOURNAL
works 20 hours a week at a minimum-wage job ($5.15/hour). Column
3 assumes she works full time (40 hours per week) at a minimum
wage job. Subsequent columns show the impacts of working full time
at increasingly higher wage rates.
Figure 1 illustrates the complex, nonlinear relationship between
the mother s earned income and her corresponding total resources.
The first column bar represents total income and benefits when the
mother does not work. In this case, she receives monthly total re-
sources valued at $828, with $292 coming from TANF, $329 from
Food Stamps, and $207 from Medicaid. She pays no taxes and has no
work expenses given her zero hours of work.
FIGURE 1
TOTAL INCOME AND BENEFITS FOR A FEMALE-HEADED
HOUSEHOLD WITH TWO CHILDREN AND PARTICIPATION IN
TANF, FOOD STAMPS, MEDICAID, EITC, AND DAYCARE
SUBSIDY PROGRAM
When she increases her work effort to 20 hours per week at a
minimum wage job, she earns $446 in income. She also begins to earn
benefits of $179 from the EITC. Out of this sum she must pay
non-daycare related work expenses (estimated at $34), FICA ($34),
and state taxes ($1).5 In addition, her TANF income decreases $163,
5
This study assumes that non-childcare related work expenses total $34 monthly for part-
time work and $67 for full-time work. These figures were obtained from a phone conver-
sation one of the authors had with an analyst at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. These figures
are within the range of estimates used with other studies that included work expenses:
Giannarelli and Steurle (1995) $23 for part-time work and $35.33 for full-time work, and
Hoynes (1997) $43.33 for part-time work and $86.67 for full-time work.
354
EFFECT OF WELFARE ON WORK AND MARRIAGE
and her Food Stamp benefits drop $18, respectively (Medicaid stays
the same), yielding her total monthly income and benefits of $1,204.
Note that by working part-time, the mother incurs monthly child-
care expenses for her two children of $390.6 However, Oklahoma s
childcare subsidy pays these costs in full, and thus these expenses do
not affect her income and benefits. Had the subsidy left some of her
childcare expenses unpaid, we would have counted her copay as an
additional work expense. In this way, the childcare subsidy enters the
income and benefit calculation only indirectly, by reducing her work
expenses.
As the mother increases her labor supply from 20 hours to 40 hours
per week at the minimum wage, she earns an additional $446, as well
as further EITC benefits of $139. However, this time she sees a much
smaller increase in total monthly income and benefits. Monthly total
resources increase from $1,204 per month when working 20 hours
per week, to only $1,381 per month when working twice that much.
The smaller increase is largely due to the decrease in transfer pro-
gram benefits. Food Stamps decline from $311 to $223. Medicaid
decreases from $207 to $121 as the parent loses eligibility for Med-
icaid benefits. TANF goes to 0. In addition, her taxes go up, along
with her non-daycare related work expenses (now estimated to be
$67). She also starts to pay a monthly daycare copay of $32.
Moving further right in Figure 1, we see the effect of wage in-
creases on the mother s income and benefits, assuming she works 40
hours per week. There is relatively little reward for achieving wage
gains beyond the minimum wage. Remarkably, the welfare recipient
would have to earn $15/hour (approximately $30,000 a year assuming
full-time, full-year work) before she was able to attain the same level
of total resources she receives when she is working part-time (20
hours per week) at the minimum wage ($5.15/ hour).
A striking characteristic of Figure 1 is the substantial drop in in-
come and benefits that occurs after the mother s hourly wage in-
creases from $11 to $12 dollars. This income notch is primarily due
to Oklahoma s childcare subsidy program. We will have more to say
about childcare subsidies below.
6
Like Acs et al. (1998), we assume that childcare is purchased in discrete quantities as either
part-time or full-time care. We do this because (1) a survey of state daycare centers that we
conducted indicates that most facilities allow for only part-time and full-time weekly pay
plans, and (2) it enables us to more accurately replicate the payment plan employed by
Oklahoma s daycare subsidy program. In addition, this modeling of childcare costs allows us
to make appropriate distinctions between increased earnings from working more hours as
opposed to increased earnings from working at a higher wage rate.
355
CATO JOURNAL
Public Assistance and Marginal Tax Rates
Figure 2 converts the total income and benefit schedule to a mar-
ginal tax rate schedule. Marginal tax rates (MTR) are calculated as
(1) MTR= 1 - ( in total resources)/( in earned income).
Changes in total resources and earned income are calculated for
adjacent columns, moving from left to right.
FIGURE 2
EFFECTIVE MARGINAL TAX RATES FOR A FEMALE-HEADED
HOUSEHOLD WITH TWO CHILDREN AND PARTICIPATION IN
TANF, FOOD STAMPS, MEDICAID, EITC, AND DAYCARE
SUBSIDY PROGRAM
The practical value of the MTR schedule is that it allows one to
gauge the impact of the combined tax and transfer programs on the
returns to becoming progressively more engaged in the labor market.
We can imagine participation in the labor market as a series of steps:
The first step consists of moving from not working at all to working
part-time (20 hours per week) at the minimum wage. The next step
consists of working part-time at the minimum wage to full-time at the
minimum wage. Subsequent steps consist of moving from lower-
paying jobs to jobs requiring greater skills and responsibilities, with
correspondingly higher wages. The MTR schedule allows us to assess
the rewards to the mother of progressing on to the next step.
Figure 2 illustrates the combined effect of the respective tax and
transfer programs (TANF, Food Stamps, Medicaid, EITC, and Child-
care Subsidy Program). For a mother of two children (ages 1 and 3)
356
EFFECT OF WELFARE ON WORK AND MARRIAGE
in daycare, these programs serve to facilitate initial entry into the
labor market. The MTR associated with moving from not working at
all to working part-time at the minimum wage is 16 percent. In other
words, for every dollar of earned income over this range, the mother
is able to retain an average of 84 cents after taxes and work expenses.
Consequently, this represents the true net return to working. As we
shall demonstrate below, the major reason for why the MTR is so low
is due to the childcare subsidy program.
Additional steps are generally less rewarding. The MTR associated
with moving from working part-time to working full-time at the mini-
mum wage is 60 percent. In other words, over this range, an hour of
work generates a post-tax, post-working expenses reward of $2.06.7
Making the next step to a job paying $6.00/hour rather than $5.15/
hour results in a virtually identical MTR (59 percent).
Figure 2 illustrates an interesting policy tradeoff produced by this
set of tax and transfer programs. As noted above, once the mother
progresses to the point of working full-time at a wage of $6.00, she has
little financial incentive to seek more rewarding employment. The
MTR associated with moving from a $6/hour to a $7/hour job is 80
percent. It is 97 percent to subsequently move to an $8/hour job, and
93 percent to move to a $9/hour job. To put this in dollar terms, the
total monthly net benefits from working full-time and moving to jobs
paying progressively higher wages of $7/hour, $8/hour, and $9/hour
are $34.66, $5.20, and $12.13, respectively. This highlights the fact
that structuring transfer programs to encourage initial entry into the
labor market has a cost in terms of reducing the reward from seeking
higher-paying (higher-skilled) employment once the worker finds em-
ployment. This cost can arise quickly at jobs that are located relatively
low on the wage distribution scale.
As a point of comparison, it is interesting to compare the incentives
and disincentives of public assistance with the case of no government
benefits. The dashed line in Figure 2 shows what the mother s MTR
would look like if she did not receive transfer program benefits. In
this case, we calculate that her MTR going from no work to part-time
work at the minimum wage would be 103 percent. Similarly, we calcu-
late a MTR of 104 percent as she goes from part-time to full-time
work. These high MTR s reflect the impact of childcare expenses,
assuming that the mother places her two children in a licensed day-
care facility. Once she is working full-time, further increases in
7
Calculated as the difference in monthly total resources (=$1,382 $1,204) divided by 86.67
hours per month.
357
CATO JOURNAL
income achieved through higher wages have a much lower MTR, as
increases in income are not consumed by increased childcare costs.
For the specific set of program participation/family characteristics in
Figure 2, it is clear that public assistance not only allows this mother
to enjoy overall greater resources, but also provides greater incentives
for her to participate in the labor market up to the point where she
is working full-time at the minimum wage.8
The Effect of Layering State Programs on Federal Programs
In order to isolate the work incentive effects of the state-
determined programs, in this section we investigate the impact of
adding state-determined programs upon a base set of federally de-
termined programs. The representative family unit continues to be a
female-headed household in Oklahoma with two children, ages 1 and
3, where both children attend paid daycare when the mother works.
It is assumed that this mother participates in five transfer programs:
EITC, Food Stamps, TANF, Medicaid, and the childcare subsidy
program. The first two programs are wholly determined at the federal
level, with no state discretion in setting benefit parameters. As a
hypothetical starting point, Panel A of Figure 3 reports the effective
MTRs as the mother progressively steps into greater participation in
the labor market, assuming that the only programs she participates in
are the federally determined EITC and Food Stamps.
We note that the combination of assuming that both children at-
tend paid childcare when the mother works and that the mother does
not receive childcare subsidies, implies that virtually all of her after-
tax earned income up through working a full-time job at the minimum
wage is dedicated to childcare expenses. Nevertheless, with Food
Stamps and EITC benefits, she is able to obtain total resources of
$329 per month when she does not work, $497 per month when she
works part-time at the minimum wage, and $620 per month when she
works full-time at the minimum wage. With just the federal programs
in place, the MTRs associated with initial entry into the labor market
are substantial. The step from not working to working part-time at the
minimum wage has a corresponding MTR of 62 percent. The step
from working part-time to full-time at the minimum wage has a MTR
of 72 percent. The MTR drops to 13 percent when the mother
8
These results change little when the children are older or when the mother forgoes placing
the children in paid childcare. However, one result that does change concerns the relative
work incentives of public assistance versus no public assistance. If the mother does not
place her children in paid childcare, then public assistance increases the financial barriers
to participating in the labor market, and it does so substantially.
358
EFFECT OF WELFARE ON WORK AND MARRIAGE
switches from a full-time job paying $5.15/hour to one paying $6/
hour. This drop occurs because childcare expenses are not affected
and EITC and Food Stamps benefits remain virtually the same. How-
ever, additional moves to higher paying employment result in sub-
stantially greater MTRs as EITC and Food Stamps benefits begin to
be reduced.
Panels B, C, and D of Figure 3 illustrate the incentive effects of
adding the state-determined programs (TANF, Medicaid, and the
childcare subsidy program). Looking first at Panels B and C, we see
that the addition of TANF and Medicaid do not affect the MTR
associated with the first step into the labor market; it remains at 62
percent. In Oklahoma, the earnings from a part-time minimum wage
job lie below the countable income threshold, so that TANF and
Medicaid benefits are not reduced in this range. However, once the
mother moves beyond this earnings threshold, the effect of adding
the state-determined programs is to increase MTRs across the board.
At first, the increased MTRs are due to reductions in TANF and Food
Stamps. (TANF interacts with Food Stamps to cause the latter s ben-
efits to be reduced more rapidly because TANF benefits count as
income in calculating Food Stamps benefits.) Only at higher earnings
levels does Medicaid contribute to the larger MTRs (the two notches
at $8/hour and $12/hour in Panel C are due to Medicaid).
Panel D illustrates the important role that childcare subsidies can
play. In Oklahoma, the childcare subsidy program serves to decrease,
sometimes substantially, the MTRs at the early steps of labor market
participation. For example, adding the childcare subsidy program
lowers the MTR associated with moving from not working to working
20 hours/week at the minimum wage from 62 percent to 16 percent.
Essentially, the childcare subsidy program serves to reduce the ex-
penses the mother must incur as she increases her work effort,
thereby reducing the MTR. Subsequent steps also see lowered
MTRs. Of course, these reductions come at a cost. The cost is realized
when the mother moves from full-time employment at a job paying
$11/hour to one paying $12/hour. The associated MTR is 379 percent.
The reason for this huge notch is that the mother s copay schedule
sees fairly small increments as her earnings increase, but a very large
increase when she crosses that earnings threshold.9 Thus, Oklahoma
has made the implicit decision to use the childcare subsidy program
to lower MTRs at earlier stages of engagement in the labor market,
9
The following schedule reports the mother s copay schedule in this scenario as her earn-
ings progressively increase: NW: 0; MW PT: 0; $5.15: 32; $6: 68; $7: 107; $8: 150; $9: 176;
$10: 192; $11: 209; $12: 779.
359
CATO JOURNAL
FIGURE 3
WORK INCENTIVE EFFECTS OF LAYERING STATE AND FEDERAL
PROGRAMS (CHILDREN IN PAID CHILDCARE)
choosing to pay for that reduction by concentrating the cost at a
relatively late stage of labor market engagement. The consequences
of having such a steep MTR notch are not well known.
Implications for Policy Reforms
In sum, the schedule of parameters incorporated in the ma-
jor state-determined programs (TANF, Medicaid, and childcare
360
EFFECT OF WELFARE ON WORK AND MARRIAGE
FIGURE 3 (cont.)
subsidies) has important consequences for the work incentives of
welfare recipients. While this is certainly well known in general, the
preceding analysis has demonstrated with specific examples how im-
portant these effects can be. What may not be well known or as well
known is that the configuration of state-determined programs con-
tains tradeoffs that may not be fully appreciated by policymakers.
For example, the preceding analysis indicates that Oklahoma has
implicitly decided to subsidize initial participation in the labor market
at the cost of reducing financial rewards from further labor market
361
CATO JOURNAL
advancement. However, this outcome was not the result of a strategic
decision by Oklahoma policymakers. Many policymakers were un-
aware that the programs they were overseeing were forcing these
tradeoffs. Analyses such as the preceding can be very helpful in point-
ing out these tradeoffs and in identifying alternative policy options.
One possible alternative policy option would be to restructure state
parameters to raise the MTRs associated with initial labor market
participation. The corresponding program savings could be used to
lower the MTRs associated with further labor market advancement. If
this change were coupled with strict work requirements that force
recipients to participate in the labor market, the program could en-
courage greater human capital acquisition on the part of welfare
recipients without decreasing their initial labor market participation.
There is a further benefit of this approach: Suppose TANF were
restructured so that TANF benefits were reduced dollar for dollar
with earned income, so that by the time the recipient was working
part-time at the minimum wage she would have exited from TANF.
The program savings could be used to reduce the reduction rate
(expand the coverage) in Medicaid benefits. This would lower the
MTR associated with subsequent labor market participation. How-
ever, it would also reduce the amount of time that the recipient was
on TANF, allowing her to save her five-year TANF eligibility (as
mandated by PRWORA) for future use, if necessary.
The Effect of Tax and Transfer Programs on
Family Structure
Poverty rates are often linked to rates of female-headship. In turn,
welfare is often listed as a possible explanatory variable for the in-
creased trend in female-headship over time. In this section, we ex-
amine the impact of government tax and transfer programs on the
incentives to form alternative family structures.
We consider the total resources available for a family unit consist-
ing of a woman with two children ages 1 and 3, and a male who works
full-time at a wage rate of $8/hour. The male is assumed to be the
father of the two children. The subsequent analysis compares total
resources for the family unit as a function of the couple s relationship.
The goal is to measure the extent to which public assistance creates
incentives for couples to choose one type of relationship over another.
Tax and transfer programs implicitly differentiate three differ-
ent categories of relationships when calculating benefits. The first
category is marriage ( Married ). The second category is the state of
362
EFFECT OF WELFARE ON WORK AND MARRIAGE
being unmarried and living together, where the cohabitation is re-
ported ( Unmarried-Cohabitation Reported ). The third category
combines two different relationship states: (1) the state of being un-
married and living apart, and (2) the state of being unmarried and
living together but the cohabitation is unreported. These two rela-
tionship states are not distinguished by tax and transfer programs for
the purposes of calculating benefits. We presume that household
expenses are generally higher for a couple living apart (maintain-
ing two residences).10 Thus, in comparing the relative attractiveness
of living apart and unreported cohabitation for this couple,
our analysis assumes the latter relationship state ( Unmarried-
Cohabitation Unreported ) as the third category in our comparison.
Tax and transfer programs behave differently with respect to how
they treat these three categories. For example, the EITC includes the
male s income with the mother s when calculating benefits if the
couple is married. When the couple cohabits, is unmarried, and the
male is the father of the children in the household, the EITC includes
only the income of the highest earning parent. In contrast, the Food
Stamp program includes the cohabitating male s income whether they
are married or not. The following analysis is designed to study the
hypothetical scenario where a couple with two children is living to-
gether and chooses to adopt the relationship state that maximizes
their total resources.11 It is assumed throughout that the male works
full-time at an $8/hour job.
Figure 4 represents the total resources available to the family in
each of the three relationship states for the case where the children
are placed in paid childcare when the mother works. Panel A reports
total resources given no public assistance. When the father works
full-time at an $8/hour job and the mother does not work at all, the
income tax system generates a financial reward in favor of marriage:
$1,198 per month in total resources versus $1,050 per month for
the other two states. As the mother enters the workforce, family
resources initially decrease for all three relationship states because
work expenses (overwhelmingly childcare costs) are greater than earned
income net of taxes. Family resources increase once the mother s
10
This does not necessarily have to be the case. For example, the male could live with his
parents and have his household expenses paid for by others, in which case living apart could
actually be cheaper.
11
This study focuses on the total size of the pie available to the family unit, and not how
the pie is divided. Distributional issues within the family unit may also affect the relative
attractiveness of the respective relationship states. These issues lie beyond the purview of
this study.
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CATO JOURNAL
FIGURE 4
MARRIAGE INCENTIVE EFFECTS OF LAYERING STATE AND
FEDERAL PROGRAMS (CHILDREN IN PAID CHILDCARE)
earnings surpass the full-time employment/minimum-wage level.
However, the greater participation in the labor market reduces the
relative attractiveness of marriage, eventually producing a financial
penalty for being married (the well known two-earners marriage
penalty ).
Panel B shows the combined effects of the two federally determined
programs (EITC and Food Stamps) on the resources associated with
the respective relationship states. The two programs have different
364
EFFECT OF WELFARE ON WORK AND MARRIAGE
FIGURE 4 (cont.)
effects. The main effect of the EITC is to decrease the relative at-
tractiveness of Married relative to Unmarried-Cohabitation Re-
ported when the mother is working full-time at a low wage. This
arises because the EITC counts both the mother s and the male s
income if the couple is married. In contrast, only one parent s income
is counted if the couple is unmarried. As the mother enters the labor
force, her earnings decrease the amount of EITC benefits the family
receives when married, while increasing their EITC benefits when
unmarried.
In contrast, the primary effect of the Food Stamp program is to
make the state of Unmarried-Cohabitation Unreported much more
attractive than Unmarried-Cohabitation Reported. As discussed
previously, Food Stamps always count the unmarried, cohabitating
male s income. In Oklahoma cohabitation is self-reported. This cre-
ates an incentive for couples to not report the fact that they are living
together.12 Once the mother is working part-time at the minimum
wage, Unmarried-Cohabitation Unreported becomes the relation-
ship state with the greatest financial rewards; and remains so for some
time as her wage increases.
Panel C of Figure 4 shows the effects of adding the state-determined
12
The extent to which this occurs is not known, though anecdotal evidence from state
caseworkers suggests that it is not infrequent in Oklahoma. In any case, one expects the
prevalence of reporting failure to be positively related to its rewards, which is the subject
of this analysis.
365
CATO JOURNAL
transfer programs (TANF, Medicaid, and the childcare subsidy) on
top of the tax and federally determined transfer programs. The
main impact of these programs with respect to family structure is
to enhance the state of Unmarried-Cohabitation Unreported.
When all the tax and transfer programs are in place, the state of
Unmarried-Cohabitation Unreported strictly dominates the other
relationship states over a wide range of labor market opportunities for
the mother from not working to working full-time at a wage of
$12/hour.
The size of the financial advantage in favor of Unmarried-
Cohabitation Unreported can be substantial. For example, when the
mother works full-time at the minimum wage and the couple is mar-
ried, the family s total resources are $1,213 per month. When the
couple is unmarried and the cohabitation is reported, total resources
are $1,413 per month. However, when the couple is unmarried and
the cohabitation is unreported, total resources are $2,431 per
month approximately twice the total resources when married. While
each of the state-determined programs contributes to this situation,
the childcare subsidy program is the largest contributor.
What does this analysis reveal about the impact of public assistance
on family structure? Obviously, to the extent that state transfer pro-
grams count the income of the unmarried, cohabitating, adult male
toward benefits, they create an incentive to not report that cohabita-
tion. The incentive can be very large when the mother is working
full-time (it exists even when the mother is not working).
One can think of the three relationship states representing pro-
gressively increasing degrees of participation of the adult male in the
family. On the one end, there is marriage, with the adult male in-
volved in a legal relationship with the mother and children. On the
other end, there is living together illicitly, in violation of welfare
eligibility requirements, where the adult male has no legal responsi-
bilities to the mother and children. If the active participation of
the father in the family unit is considered to be a positive influence
on the well-being of the children, then public assistance may ad-
versely impact the family by encouraging the latter relationship
state. This adverse impact is magnified to the extent that public as-
sistance also encourages the state of being unmarried and living
separately.13
13
These incentive effects can be thought of as substitution effects. There is a corresponding
income effect that may also work in the same direction. If marriage is an inferior good for
the woman, then to the degree public assistance increases the total resources of the mother
in all three relationship states, it reduces her incentive to marry.
366
EFFECT OF WELFARE ON WORK AND MARRIAGE
Two considerations restrict the force of the preceding arguments.
First, the frequency of the relationship state Unmarried-Co-
habitation Unreported is not well known. If couples are not willing
to misrepresent their cohabitation status and state agencies are able to
effectively monitor this circumstance and thus prevent its occur-
rence then this relationship option may not be frequently chosen
despite its financial attractiveness.
Second, the financial advantage of Unmarried-Cohabitation Un-
reported is not nearly so great when the mother does not place her
children in paid childcare. Figure 5 repeats the analysis of Figure 4,
though only the beginning ( No Public Assistance [Panel A]) and
final ( EITC, Food Stamps, TANF + Medicaid [Panel B]) transfer
program combinations are presented. The relationship option Un-
married-Cohabitation Unreported is still financially dominant, but
not nearly as dominating as when the children are placed in paid
childcare.
As in the case of work incentives, however, the value of the pre-
ceding analysis is that it identifies tradeoffs that may not have been
recognized before. Consider Panels C and B of Figures 4 and 5,
respectively. Both panels represent the final total resource schedules
given the respective packages of transfer programs. Note that the
relative, financial attractiveness of Marriage declines relative to
both Unmarried-Cohabitation Reported and Unmarried-Co-
habitation Unreported when the mother goes from not working to
working full-time. In other words, public assistance policies that en-
courage or require mothers to go to work decrease the relative at-
tractiveness of marriage. Our experience suggests that most policy-
makers are oblivious of this consequence.
This analysis also suggests a way to fix this problem. The previous
section on work incentives raised the possibility of increasing the
benefit reduction rate of TANF to lower the MTR of subsequent
work effort and expand Medicaid coverage. An alternative use of
these program savings would be to allow public assistance recipients
to maintain their level of benefits for a period of time after they got
married.
Conclusion
This study provides a comprehensive examination of the work and
marriage incentives of public assistance. It focuses on the conse-
quences of state-determined programs. Such an approach allows state
policymakers to understand the tradeoffs implicit in their current
program parameters. It allows them to better identify alternative
367
CATO JOURNAL
FIGURE 5
MARRIAGE INCENTIVE EFFECTS OF LAYERING STATE AND
FEDERAL PROGRAMS (CHILDREN NOT IN PAID CHILDCARE)
arrangements that may be more consistent with policy goals. And it
discovers linkages between work and marriage incentives that may be
otherwise difficult to discern.
In the case of Oklahoma, we find that state-determined programs
serve to lower the marginal tax rate associated with initial entry into
the labor market, at the expense of increased MTRs later. The cost of
this tradeoff is that it reduces the reward from seeking higher-paying
(higher-skilled) employment once the worker finds employment.
Knowledge of this tradeoff can direct the policymaker to alternatives.
368
EFFECT OF WELFARE ON WORK AND MARRIAGE
For example, stricter work requirements could be substituted for low,
entry-level MTRs and the resulting cost savings used to reduce sub-
sequent MTRs.
With respect to family structure incentives, we show that state-
determined programs discourage the involvement of the adult male in
the family unit because they make the relationship option of unmar-
ried, unreported cohabitation (and possibly unmarried, living apart)
financially attractive relative to either marriage or unmarried, re-
ported cohabitation. The size of the differentials can be quite large,
with the former category achieving total family resources twice that of
marriage.
Furthermore, we demonstrate how efforts to encourage the moth-
er s labor market participation can produce unintended marriage dis-
incentives, since the relative financial attractiveness of marriage is
reduced when the mother works. One possible solution to this prob-
lem is to allow the mother to maintain transfer program benefits for
a period of time after she marries. As discussed earlier, funding for
this could be generated through cost savings realized by raising entry-
level MTRs.
Over the past 20 years, states have been given substantial flexibility
in setting parameters for income assistance, childcare assistance, and
health care programs, among others. The complicated interactions
between these programs, federally determined programs, and the
linkages between labor market participation and family structure in-
centives make it difficult to identify the many incentive effects em-
bedded in state-determined transfer programs.
This research can also be of benefit to federal policymakers. Poli-
cies such as increases in the minimum wage and expansions of the
EITC need to be evaluated within the context of existing state policies
to appreciate the benefits and costs. For example, high MTRs mean
that increases in the minimum wage will produce relatively small
benefits for public assistance recipients. Furthermore, expansions of
the EITC may produce unintended marriage disincentives (cf. Figure
4.B). It is our hope that this research has demonstrated the value of
studying these effects.
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