TY  - JOUR
AU  - Grogger,Jeff
TI  - Time Limits and Welfare Use
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 7709
PY  - 2000
Y2  - May 2000
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7709
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7709.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Jeffrey Grogger
Irving B. Harris Professor of Urban Policy
Harris School of Public Policy
University of Chicago
1155 E. 60th Street
Chicago, IL   60637
Tel: 773/542-3533
Fax: 773/702-0926
E-Mail: jgrogger@uchicago.edu
AB  - Time limits are a central component of recent welfare reforms and represent a substantial departure from previous policy. However, several recent studies suggest that they have had no effect on welfare use. In this paper I attempt to reconcile those findings with results from Grogger and Michalopoulos, who find time limits to have substantial effects that vary by the age of the youngest child in the family. Using data from the Current Population Survey, I obtain results similar to those of previous analysts when I estimate models that constrain the effects of time limits to be independent of age. When I allow for age dependence and employ controls for time-varying state-level unobservables that may be correlated with the timing of welfare reform, however, I find that time limits have negative effects on welfare use and that those effects are stronger, the younger the youngest child in the family. The estimates suggest that time limits may account for 16 to 18 percent of the recent decline in welfare use among female-headed families.
ER  -