TY - JOUR AU - Guldi, Melanie AU - Hawkins, Amelia AU - Hemmeter, Jeffrey AU - Schmidt, Lucie TI - Supplemental Security Income and Child Outcomes: Evidence from Birth Weight Eligibility Cutoffs JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 24913 PY - 2018 Y2 - August 2018 DO - 10.3386/w24913 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w24913 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w24913.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Melanie E. Guldi Department of Economics University of Central Florida 4336 Scorpius Street Orlando, FL 32816-1400 E-Mail: mguldi@bus.ucf.edu Amelia A. Hawkins Department of Economics University of Michigan 611 Tappan St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 E-Mail: aaehawki@umich.edu Jeffrey Hemmeter Office of Research, Demonstration, and Employment Social Security Administration 4303 Annex Bldg 6401 Security Blvd Baltimore, MD 21235 Tel: 410-597-1815 E-Mail: jeffrey.hemmeter@ssa.gov Lucie Schmidt Department of Economics Williams College 201 Schapiro Hall Williamstown, MA 01267 Tel: 413/884-5449 E-Mail: lschmidt@williams.edu AB - Low birth weight infants born to mothers with low educational attainment have a double hurdle to overcome in the production of human capital. We examine whether income transfers in the form of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments for children with disabilities can help close the gap in outcomes due to this initial health and environmental disadvantage. We exploit a discontinuity in SSI eligibility at 1200 grams and use a regression discontinuity approach to produce causal estimates of the effects of SSI eligibility. We find that eligibility increases disability benefit participation, improves child outcomes and parenting behaviors, and shifts maternal labor supply from full to part time. ER -