A patchwork safety net
Subtitle: a survey of cliometric studies of income maintenance programs in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century
By: Price V. Fishback, Samuel Allen, Jonathan Fox, Brendan Livingston.
Contributors: Fishback, Price Van Meter.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 15696; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) -- working paper no. 15696.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Description: "Social welfare programs in the United States are designed to serve as safety nets for people in hard times, in contrast with the universal approach found in many other developed western nations.  In a survey of Cliometric studies of social welfare programs in the U.S., we examine the variation in the safety net in the U.S.  across states in the 20th century, the determinants of the variation, and its impact on socioeconomic outcomes.  The U.S.  has always displayed substantial variation in the extent of the safety net because the features of most public social welfare programs are and were determined by local and state governments, even after the federal government became involved.  Differences across states persist strongly for typically a decade, although the persistence weakens with time, and there are some periods when federal intervention led to a re-ordering.  The rankings of state benefits differs from program to program, and economic and political factors have different weights in determining benefit levels in panel data estimation of their effects.  Variation in benefits across programs during the early 1900s had significant impact on labor markets, economic activity, family formation, death rates, and crime"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 3/9/2010.

Includes bibliographical references.

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