Annually, over 25 million people in the United States receive the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Nearly 5 million of those people are lifted out of poverty by the wage supplement the credit provides. A wide body of literature supplies evidence for the positive labor force participation effects of the EITC. However, little is known about the effects of the additional labor supply on the wages of low-income workers. This report employs state-level panel data to estimate the influence of EITC visibility and benefit levels on the wages of occupation groups with high shares of EITC eligible workers. Using OLS regression, I find that a 10 percent increase in the share of the population claiming the EITC corresponds with a 0.3 to 2.2 percent decrease in the median wages of high-EITC eligible sectors, relative to overall median wages. Further, a 10 percent increase in the maximum benefit level of the EITC corresponds with a 0.1 to 0.8 percent decrease in median wages in occupation groups with large shares of EITC eligible workers, relative to overall median wages. These findings provide useful information to policymakers regarding the unintended consequences of the EITC. Policy recommendations include increasing the credit value for childless adults, regularly adjusting the minimum wage for inflation, and financially penalizing employers who engage in unsavory wage behavior. / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of Economics, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on March 27, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 93-98). Also issued in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [100]-104).

While states have traditionally relied almost solely upon local property taxes for the main support of public education, other revenue sources have included sales, bank shares and occupational taxes at the local level. With the passing of the Local Tax Enabling Act in 1965 at the state level, most Pennsylvania school districts were empowered to collect non-real estate taxes (General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1965). On November 11, 1986, an earned income tax resolution was approved and adopted by the Township of Upper Dublin with an effective date of January 1, 1987. On June 1, 1993 the School District of Upper Dublin and the School Board of Directors followed suit and approved and adopted an earned income tax resolution. Currently, all School District of Upper Dublin residents pay a one-percent earned income tax (Lukoff, 1986). The earned income tax revenues are shared equally between the township and school district. The major aim of this study was to assess real estate property taxpayer attitudes in the School District and Township of Upper Dublin towards the earned income tax. More specifically, did taxpayers believe that the earned income tax held steady, or reduced, real estate property taxes? The study employed one primary data collection strategy: a questionnaire mailed to a random sample of real estate property taxpayers in the School District of Upper Dublin. This methodology allowed the researcher to gain a more thorough understanding of the issue and to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. The study revealed that taxpayers in the school district and township did not generally believe the earned income tax had reduced and/or held steady real estate property taxes. When the tax was instituted two decades ago, reducing real estate property taxes was one purpose, as was finding an additional source of revenue for the school district and township. Additionally, taxpayers in the study viewed the earned income tax as a "good" or "fair" tax and certainly recognized the purpose of the tax to fund education and township services via another source of revenue. Accordingly, school district and township officials must recognize that taxpayer's feelings translate into implications for public policy. These implications include recognizing the mistrust and misinformation associated with the tax and developing a better informed public. Officials must recognize that taxpayers seem to believe that the earned income tax is a "good" and/or "fair" tax, but are required to pay it like any other tax. / Educational Administration

My dissertation consists of three essays on labor supply responses, along the extensive margin (participation into the labor force) and along the intensive margin (intensity of work on the job). The first two essays focus on the labor supply responsiveness of single women with children to taxation and welfare programs. The third essay investigates the effects of marriage, the wage rate, and the associated tax rate on men's labor supply. In the first essay, to avoid bias from the fact that labor supply outcomes are being driven by self-selection, I build a dynamic stochastic discrete choice model to investigate the long run effects of the earned income tax credit and welfare policies on single mothers' labor supply. Simulated method of moments is used to estimate parameters of this dynamic model, based on March CPS data files from 1964 to 2013. I compare the performance of the dynamic stochastic discrete choice model, a static model, and a reduced-form model. My analysis concludes that the dynamic stochastic discrete choice model captures the simultaneous impact of the state variables on the predicted employment decision. My study provides evidence of the long-run positive effect of public policy on low income families in a life-cycle setting. This essay also emphasizes the importance of education in increasing single mothers' labor supply. The second essay is designed to identify factors that help single mothers leave TANF within a short span of time. I find strong evidence for the importance of child support assistance to single mothers' success in exiting TANF with a job. I uncover evidence that work-related activities do not induce TANF participants to leave within a short span of time. My analysis also suggests that health issues significantly limit the ability of single mothers to exit TANF. In the third essay, the main research question is how marital status affects the elasticity of the labor supply of males with respect to wages and taxes, in a life-cycle setting. A dynamic panel data model, which extends the literature on dynamic labor supply, indicates that the elasticity of men's labor supply with respect to wages and taxes is affected by marital status. The empirical results using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data show that men who are continuously married to the same wife have a lower average Frisch elasticity than others. / Ph. D.

Knowledge matters in politics and a wide range of factors influence politicians’ use of research. One element that has been identified as relevant is the media. However, this has mainly been a theoretical conclusion, in want of empirical underpinning. In this thesis the topic is examined intensively through a quasi-experimental comparison and a mechanism tracing. The cases in focus are the Swedish earned income tax credit and surplus goal, and the concrete hypotheses concern whether the intensity and cohesion of the media coverage of research influence politicians' references to knowledge in debates. The results of the comparison suggest that there is a correlation between the intensity of the media coverage and the use of references in debates, whereas it is harder to say anything about the cohesion. Furthermore, a series of mechanisms explaining the relationship in detail are proposed. Among these is one indicating that vote maximi-sation encourages alignment of knowledge use with the media coverage, and another illuminating the practice of cherry-picking research results that are mentioned in the press. The conclusions thus not only tell us something about how the media influences knowledge use, but also advance the debate on symbolic knowledge use among politicians.

No description available.

The "work first" philosophy of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act sent millions of people into the labor force, many for the first time. The result was a dramatic increase in the number of workers whose earnings failed to pull them and their families out of poverty. Assistance in the form of childcare, transportation, medical coverage, and the Earned Income Tax Credit is beginning to receive attention as support mechanisms for people who do not earn adequate wages and receive little benefits from their employers. This study examines the effectiveness of Georgia's approach to providing work support programs to its working poor citizens. No single entity is responsible for making work supports accessible. Thus, services often go underutilized because those who might qualify are not aware of their potential eligibility. Further, there is no state level strategy for ensuring that wage advancement is considered by agencies providing work support services. Using client administrative wage data from the Georgia Department of Labor and qualitative interviews from program staff, the state's structure for assisting the working poor is examined.

The concept of the work-first principle (arbetslinjen) might be considered old, but still serves as the main principle as well as an instrument in the Swedish labour market and social policy today. The original idea was that work and willingness to work was to be rewarded, especially due to a common opposition against the passive receipt of grants. The general definition of work, today, is that it is something desirable that should be achieved and that unemployed primarily will be offered training or work rather than grants and subsidies. When the Moderate party re-launched themselves as Sweden's "workers' party of today", in the beginning of the 2000's, the concept was brought back into the spotlight. In the elections of 2006 and 2010, the labour market was widely debated and become a controversial issue, with the concept of the work-first principle playing a major role. The purpose of this thesis is to analyse and problematize how the concept was presented and explained in the nationwide newspapers Aftonbladet and Svenska Dagbladet during the 2010 elections, this in order to increase the understanding of the concept’s contemporary definition and policy implications. This was done by analysing news articles, including articles from the debate and cultural sections, as well as editorials in afore mentioned newspapers, through a discourse analytical approach using the conceptual and analytical tools from both the discourse theory and the critical discourse analysis. The result of this thesis shows that the discourse is not primarily a matter of the work-first principle’s existence or nonexistence but rather how it should be defined and what to include. Other main result was that the common definition of the work-first principle and its content, during the election of 2010 (1 January - 19 September), was closely connected to the policy of the, ruling Alliance Government.

The wage area is constantly the actual theme relevant for the most of the population. The diploma thesis provides an overview of the related legislature, the basic accounting correspondences and the working procedures of external auditors. On this basis it makes clear the important relative connections and contextures.