The Health Effects Of Expanding The Earned Income Tax Credit: Results From New York City.
Courtin, Emilie;
Aloisi, Kali;
Miller, Cynthia;
Allen, Heidi L;
Katz, Lawrence F;
Muennig, Peter;
(2020)
The Health Effects Of Expanding The Earned Income Tax Credit: Results From New York City.
Health affairs (Project Hope), 39 (7).
pp. 1149-1156.
ISSN 0278-2715
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2019.01556
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Antipoverty policies may hold promise as tools to improve health and reduce mortality rates among low-income Americans. We examined the health effects of the New York City Paycheck Plus randomized controlled trial. Paycheck Plus tests the impact of a potential fourfold increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income Americans without dependent children. Starting in 2015, Paycheck Plus offered 5,968 study participants a credit of up to $2,000 at tax time (treatment) or the standard credit of about $500 (control). Health-related quality of life and other outcomes for a representative subset of these participants (n = 3,289) were compared to those of a control group thirty-two months after randomization. The intervention had a modest positive effect on employment and earnings, particularly among women. It had no effect on health-related quality of life for the overall sample, but women realized significant improvements.
