source-library

FINANCIAL SUPPORT

Minimum Wage

Minimum Wage

• https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/wiki/faq_minwage brief on the basic economics of minimum wage

• [https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/601139/The_impact_of_the_NMW_on_employment_-a_meta-analysis.pdf](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/601139/The_impact_of_the_NMW_on_employment-_a_meta-analysis.pdf)

• Seattle minimum wage hike
  • Brief on the plan: https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/LaborStandards/OLS_MWmultiyearChart2020.pdf
  • Results: https://irle.berkeley.edu/seattles-minimum-wage-raises-pay-without-costing-jobs/
    • Press release version of results, better to cite: https://irle.berkeley.edu/seattles-minimum-wage-raises-pay-without-costing-jobs/
  • https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/02/seattle-passed-a-15-minimum-wage-law-in-2014-heres-how-its-turned-out-so-far.html CNBC article detailing how seattle’s MW hike has had mixed results. Though not a failure, the hike did reshape the economic environment of the city to an extent and led to some businesses reworking their profit models.

• https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53ee4f0be4b015b9c3690d84/t/5d4ad71af762cc0001221053/1565185821445/Final+CNYCA+NELP+NYC+Min-Wage-Restaurants.pdf NYC MW hike

• Texas
  • https://www.kvue.com/article/money/economy/boomtown-2040/austin-unaffordable-minimum-wage/269-08ff6abe-8746-46ef-9c7d-03f1808123e9 austin, TX is the least affordable major city in the country for minimum wage workers. Keep in mind citing this can mean overlooking crucial context if it exists, like maybe 1% of austin workers live on minimum wage for example
• Wolfson & Belman 19
  • Review of 15 years of minimum wage research
  • A bit hard to give clear, 100% solid results as there’s a lot of variability in results - “Both the quantity and variation in estimates pose a challenge not only for researchers but also for policy makers. Summarizing the findings is not straightforward.”
  • Where minimum wage increases hurt employment, these effects have decreased substantially with time and are mostly localized to teenagers
• https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2019-07/CBO-55410-MinimumWage2019.pdf
  • Finds that “Increasing the federal minimum wage would have two principal effects on low-wage workers. For most low-wage workers,earnings and family income would increase, which would lift some families out of poverty, But other low-wage workers would become jobless, and their family income would fall—in some cases, below the poverty threshold.”
  • Also “A higher minimum wage can affect family income in a variety of ways. Most directly, a higher minimum wage boosts income for the families of most low-wage workers, though a small share of low-wage workers may see their family income fall if they are jobless for an extended period.”
  • Raising minimum wage to $15 would see an estimated 1.3 million people without jobs, but wages would rise for an estimated 17 million.
  • Almost 50 percent of the jobless every week (about 600,000) would be teenagers, some of whom would live with families with incomes way over the poverty threshold.

Addressing Claims about the Minimum Wage

1. “Increasing the minimum wage will cause unemployment!”

This would be plausible if the market was perfectly competitive. However, the market is monopsonistic and firms can use their monopsony power to reduce the wages they pay workers to below the level in a competitive environment which kills jobs. For example, labor markets are highly concentrated: the average is Herfindahl–Hirschman Index 3,157, which is above the 2,500 threshold for high concentration according to the Department of Justice / Federal Trade Commission horizontal merger guidelines. Going from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile in concentration is associated with a 17% decline in posted wages, suggesting that concentration increases labor market power and monopsony power. This is corroborated by labor markets in U.S. manufacturing being far from perfectly competitive: the average plant operates in a monopsonistic environment, as it charges a markdown of 1.53. This indicates wages below the marginal product of labor further suggesting monopsony power. So a minimum wage doesn’t actually cause unemployment in fact funnel graphs show that the effects of minimum wage on employment cluster around zero and studies are now showing it has a minuscule effect on employment since David Card and Alan Krueger came out with a landmark study in 1994 showing that a big minimum wage hike didn’t cause unemployment.

2. “But employers will need more experienced and harder workers!”

Minimum wages might instead improve the relative employment prospects of disadvantaged workers For example, barriers to mobility are greater among minorities than among teens as a whole. Higher pay then increases the returns to worker search and overcomes existing barriers to employment that are not based on skill and experience differentials. A higher minimum wage could help disadvantaged workers to cover the costs of finding and keeping a job, including, for example, transportation, child-care, and uniforms. This is corroborated by the employment effect of the minimum wage on white, black, and Hispanic teens as there is no statistically significant effect of the minimum wage on teens as a whole, or on any of the three racial and ethnic groups, separately, after controlling for region of the country. There’s also no evidence that employers change the age or gender composition in the restaurant sector in response to the minimum wage as Dube, Lester, and Reich (2012) demonstrates. Teens from more affluent areas increased their labor supply (and employment) after the 1996-1997 increases in the minimum wage, while employment of teens in less affluent areas experienced no statistically significant change in employment.

3. “Increasing the minimum wage will accelerate automation!”

First of all, automation has already occurred rapidly where technological possibilities permit. Additional automation may occur in manufacturing, but the minimum wage effects will be small because labor costs increases are far outweighed by reductions in technology costs. Employer survey and behavior shows that firms would prefer to raise prices over reducing capacity, by reducing staff and operating hours.

Second of all, this is doubly wrong. On the one hand, there’s little guarantee that increased minimum wages really will increase the pace at which labor-saving technology is developed. On the other hand, there’s no reason to think this would be a bad scenario.If minimum wage hikes really do spur the creation and adoption of high-quality new equipment to automate elements of, say, the food service industry, then that would be a very positive outcome that implies minimum wage hikes are a great idea.

• Most restaurants would keep longer hours (they’re paying for the rent and the robots anyway), meaning many workers would get a raise and change shifts.

• The advanced robo-restaurant technology would itself be a valuable American export good, and people would be employed in designing and selling it.

• Some low-wage work would be reallocated out of the relatively low-social-value restaurant sector and into things like child care and home health assistance, for which there is ample demand.

• Since poor people are now making more money, there will be opportunities to sell them things — things like restaurant meals! — that they couldn’t previously afford, which in turn creates demand for new jobs.

Even better, to the extent that we are able to produce everything we need with less labor, we can afford to let people work less. Right now the retirement age is rising from 65 to 67, and most people think it will have to go up to 70. If robots can do a lot of the work instead, we could put it back down to 65 or even to 62 while still growing the economy. We could give more financial support to college students so fewer of them are doing part-time food service work. We could give new parents more paid leave time and mandate four weeks of paid vacation for everyone.

https://www.vox.com/2016/4/2/11348148/minimum-wage-robots

4. “Raising the minimum wage will hurt small employers!”

First of all, the locations for low wages tend to be smaller areas therefore there are fewer employers therefore more monopsony power. The opposite is actually true. Small employers may benefit from a higher minimum wage because of positive effects on worker retention and productivity and savings on recruitment and training costs. In fact, the number of small businesses across the economy grew by 5.4% from 1998 to 2003 in the higher minimum wage states, compared to a 4.2% increase for the balance of the states.

5. “The cost of living varies among location!”

Congress discussed including a Southern differential in the debates leading up to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. In 1938, wage and living cost differences between the South and the non-South were much greater than they are today. But in the end, Congress decided to establish a single national minimum wage floor. By establishing a single national floor at a time of other major economic transformations, Congress set in motion a series of substantial positive economic changes in the South. In particular, the isolated economies of the rural South became more linked to the national economy. The South prospered in succeeding decades, and the southern regional wage differential became much smaller. A similar development occurred as a result of the civil rights revolution and the associated extension of Fair Labor Standard Act coverage to more of the South’s industries. So, Congress did authorize states to set higher floors. States began to do so in the 1980s and with increasing frequency, especially as Congressional inaction has allowed the real value of the minimum wage to decline over time. The patchwork of state minimum wages today allows states to adjust their minimum wages to reflect living cost differences among the states.

6. “The minimum wage won’t lead to increased productivity!”

First of all, the minimum wage hasn’t even kept of with productivity. Workers today who are paid the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour are, after adjusting for inflation, paid 29% less than their counterparts 50 years ago. This is despite the fact that the economy’s capacity to deliver higher wages has doubled in the last 50 years, as measured by labor productivity, or the amount of output produced by workers. Had the minimum wage kept pace with labor productivity growth since 1968, this year it would be more than $20 per hour.

Actually, a higher minimum wage may increase productivity from a managerial standpoint and an employee standpoint. For example, fast food managers (at about 90%) indicate that they plan to respond to the minimum-wage increase with increased performance standards such as “requiring a better attendance and on-time record, faster and more proficient performance of job duties, taking on additional tasks, and faster termination of poor performers.” Roughly the same share of managers said that they sought to “boost morale” by presenting the minimum-wage increase as a “challenge to the store” and using this as a way “to energize employees to improve productivity”

Additionally, from a minimum wage increase may improve productivity independently of any actions by employers to increase productivity. According to “efficiency wage” theory, wages above the competitive-market rate may elicit greater work effort for several reasons. One is that efficiency wages could reduce shirking. Higher pay increases the cost to workers of losing their job, potentially inducing greater effort from workers in order to reduce their chances of being fired. From a more sociological point of view, workers may see higher wages as a gift from employers, leading workers to reciprocate by working harder. According to James Rebitzer and Lowell Taylor (1995)’s model, a minimum wage in the context of efficiency wages “may increase the level of employment in low wage jobs.” This is corroborated by the fact that a 6% increase in the minimum wage, worker productivity (i.e. output per hour) in the bottom 40th percentile of the worker fixed effects distribution increases by about 4.6% relative to that in the higher percentiles.

7. “If the minimum wage goes up then everything you have to pay for goes up!”

This is only true for a perfectly competitive economy. Both because of the relatively small share of production costs accounted for by minimum wage labor and because of the limited spillovers from a minimum wage increase to wages of other workers, the effect of a minimum wage increase on the overall price level is likely to be small, which it is: a 10% US minimum wage increase raises overall prices by no more than 0.4%.

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UBI and Redistributive Cash Transfers

UBI and Redistributive Cash Transfers

Yeah it’s socdem but there’s utility in defending it, especially considering how advocating for UBI could move rightists further left (see how Yang temporarily brought over some republicans, for example). Regardless, UBI and RCT do seem to be effective at reducing poverty without causing many other problems, making it a viable policy in a capitalist system.

This doc is good to cite if you’re in a hurry

Yang’s stuff on it might be useful too, plenty of links are included. Also addresses a lot of questions not covered here

Redistributive Cash Transfers

• Research On Cash Transfers
  • This source lists three pro-RCT points, said points being:
    • RCTs have positive effects on children, primarily increased weight for age and weight for height, 15% decreased rates of low birth-weight, and increased school attendance.
    • Recipients of RCT use the income well, causing it to create long term benefit. Men’s income increased by 64-96% five years after receiving a transfer.
    • Those receiving transfers don’t expend their income on unneeded commodities such as alcohol. There is also no significant impact on work-hours.
• Philippines Conditional Cash Transfer Program Impact Evaluation 2012
  • A test of a RCT was conducted in the Philippines, in which families would be given conditional grants of flat, untaxed payment depending on their financial and familial situation. The program primarily aimed to test RCT’s ability to break generational poverty and benefit children’s future. Parents with children ranging age 0-14 are eligible for the health grants, receiving a total of ₱500 monthly, as long as conditions as to how well families follow health guidelines are met. For the education grants, the only conditions to apply for the benefit of ₱300 per child monthly are to have a child 6-14 in a low-income area, and to make sure the child attends at least 85% of school days.
  • Education results:
    • Attendance in preschool or daycare was 10.3% higher than the baseline of 65% for the low-income families without the RCT. Similarly, in children aged 6-11, enrolment in elementary school rose 4.5% higher than the baseline 93% in other low income households. However, for children 15-17, RCT had a slight negative effect on enrolment, but the RCT did not apply to the age group, so a positive effect on education was not expected for those 15-17. Similarly to the benefits in enrolment in most age groups, attendance in school increased in all age groups.
  • Health results:
    • Access to prenatal and postnatal care greatly increased for women affected by the RCT health benefits. (Prenatal by 10.5% and postnatal by 10%). It was also found that pregnant recipients of RCT made visits to prenatal facilities 1.6x more than the control. RCT also reduced severe stunting in affected children 6-36 months old by 10.1% from the 24% baseline. Alcohol consumption reduced by 39% in households affected by RCT.
  • Economic results: -Poor households receiving RCT increased spending on health services by 34%, increased spending on education by 38%, and increased spending on protein-rich foods by 38%. There was a reduction in poverty three years after the program’s initiation by 2.7%. This impact is small, but would likely increase as more time under the program passes for affected families. It was found there was no significant change in motivation to work.
  • Graphs:
• Do The Poor Waste Transfers On Booze And Cigarettes? No.
  • This article makes the claim that recipients of RCT and UBI do not use their given income on goods such as alcohol. Examples are as follows:
    • When examining 44 estimates of alcohol consumption across 19 studies and 13 interventions, the majority of studies report results of reduced alcohol consumption (82%).
    • There is little to no incentive for recipients to lie. The surveyors intentionally do not add items such as alcohol in separate lists, and treat them with the same significance as other household items. It’s also been shown that those with a non-zero baseline for alcohol don’t suddenly report spending nothing on alcohol, instead, they still tend to report a decreased, but not non-zero spending on alcohol. This trend implies that recipients do not try to “game the system,” and rather remain honest about their expenditures.
  • Graph:

UBI Reduces Poverty:

• UBI Pros And Cons
  • This article lists potential benefits to implementation of a system of Universal Basic income, including, but not limited to:
    • Reduction of spousal abuse by the abused being given safe means to economically split with their abuser.
    • Placing everyone above the poverty line, lowering crime.
    • Balancing of wealth, lessening economic inequality
    • Removing the need for social security, such as unemployment benefits and food stamps.
• A Free Market Case For a UBI
  • This article makes another libertarian defense of Universal Basic Income, some points being:
    • Under current social security measures, it is incentivised to remain in low income jobs due to threat of a loss of social security benefits. Even if these poorly paid workers were to expend effort towards a higher paying job, an increase in their income taxes would outweigh the benefits that going from a low-paying job with benefits to a high-paying one without could have. A universal income would remove these issues by providing a benefit that is not withdrawn as one’s income rises.
    • A UBI would allow for greater economic freedom for the recipient than the current social security measures, rather than forcing the worker’s hand into purchasing commodities they don’t want or need.
    • The increase in taxes to implement a UBI would not be substantial enough to outweigh the economic benefit it would have if it were implemented.
• The Libertarian Case For a UBI
  • This article makes a libertarian capitalist defense of Universal Basic Income, some points made are as follows:
    • Rather than decreasing work incentive, it would increase incentive as it would remove social security measures such as unemployment benefits that are dependent on remaining unemployed, whereas with UBI, one would receive the universal income atop the income they already receive from their job.
    • The U.S. government already spends as much on poverty programs as it would cost to raise all under the poverty line over it. Replacing those programs with one such as UBI would simplify the process while also being more effective at reducing poverty.
    • Instead of forcing those who benefit from the existing social security programs to spend the money allocated towards them on specific products, a predetermined UBI would allow them to make the choice on how to allocate their funds.
• [VIDEO] Universal Basic Income Explained
  • This video primarily lists the pros and cons of a “mincome system,” in which the UBI covers exclusively up to the point of the poverty line without any conditions. Topics discussed are as shown:
    • The impoverished do not spend their money received by UBI on harmful commodities such as alcohol or tobacco, and rather use the money to purchase other commodities.
    • Only ~1% of the recipients of UBI stop working. Those that do often use their time for goals such as schooling or better parenting their children.
    • Most welfare programs come with conditions, tying those receiving the benefits into a state in which they’re forced to remain under the poverty line to continue living comfortably. A mincome UBI would be conditionless, and would not leave the poor in “welfare traps.”
    • Rather than increasing inflation, a UBI would shift funds rather than creating them, not increasing inflation whatsoever.
• Pragmatic Libertarian Case: Basic Income Guarantee (UBI)
  • This article details the benefits of a Universal Basic Income from a pragmatic libertarian’s perspective a few pros listed are:
    • The current social security measures are ineffective at combating poverty. 11.8% of U.S. residents live in poverty (as of 2018 according to the USCB), despite spending over $668 billion annually. A UBI would be more direct in allocating funds to the destitute, and would be enough to raise all impoverished people within the U.S. over the poverty line.
    • As an unconditional grant, a UBI would be uninvasive and wouldn’t include measures preventing those in poverty from receiving the benefits from intrusive tests such as drug tests exempting marijuana users from the assistance of a UBI.
    • There is no objective scale to determine one’s need, so a member of the petty-bourgeois class tends to afford a stronger legal case as to why they “need” the current social security than a member of the working class would. A UBI would benefit all working class peoples, due to the nature of a UBI excluding no one.
    • A UBI would be less invasive and less presumptuous when it comes to what the recipient needs to purchase with the received income. It would also stop the state from exempting those it doesn’t see as living its preferred lifestyle from measures to prevent poverty.

UBI trials:

• Finnish Basic Income Pilot Improved Wellbeing, Study Finds & Evaluation of The Finnish Basic Income Experiment
  • TEST: The test included ~2,000 unemployed Finnish Citizens receiving the equivalent of $680 monthly for 2 years, employment would not affect the amount of support participants received.
  • RESULTS: Researchers interviewed 81 participants throughout the test, and while results varied, the general consensus was that a UBI is generally effective as a welfare measure for the impoverished. There was a slight positive correlation between a UBI and employment, recipients reported feeling generally happier, and some participants even claimed the UBI gave them a chance to “live their dreams.” Overall, the Finnish UBI experiment proved to be successful, despite some criticisms with the conduction of the experiment.
  • CRITICISMS: The test interviewed only 81/2000 participants, being only 4% of the participants; however, there were other forms of questioning present in the study. Another criticism of the test was its short runtime, being only affecting the participants for 2 years. Finally, the test only applied to the already unemployed, showing no results for a UBI applied to the general population. However, even with these criticisms, the test seems to show a very positive effect if applied to the unemployed.
• On the Canadian Prairie, a Basic Income Experiment
  • TEST: In the 1970’s, the Canadian government attempted a 5 year Minimum Basic Income test in the province of Manitoba. The experiment ensured at least the minimum income a family required to remain comfortable.
  • RESULTS: There was little impact in the number of people working, some women stopped working, but the primary reason was to simply take maternity leave to better care for their children. Hospitalization, especially hospitalization caused by mental health issues, declined severely, likely due to lowered stress caused by a fear of a lack of funds. Teens were able to stay in education for longer, not needing to leave high school to support their families. Overall, the experiment proved successful, greatly improving the lives of the recipients of the funds.
• Economic Response to a Guaranteed Annual Income: Experience from Canada and the United States
  • TESTS: Many tests were attempted by both the Canadian and U.S. governments to determine the effects a UBI would have, using different formulas to determine the payment methods of the UBI. The primary concern of the experiments was the “labor supply response,” or, the amount which the total measurable amount of labor done by the participants changed within a given time after implementation of UBI.
  • RESULTS: Tests involving Keeley’s method had the most severe results of the labor supply response (an average decline in labor supply response of about seven percent for husbands, about twenty eight percent for wives, and about twenty two percent for single female heads). However, Keeley’s test required eligible participants to have an income less than eleven thousand (single headed) or less than thirteen thousand (double headed), rather than determining eligibility by means by comparing by percentage their incomes to the poverty line. Other U.S. tests of UBI (conducted by Robins and Burtless) impacted the labor supply response less (an average decline in labor supply response of about six percent for husbands, about nineteen percent for wives, and about fifteen percent for single female heads). The results of the “mincome design” tested in Canada are by far the lowest (an average decline in labor supply response of about one percent for men, about three percent for wives, and about seven percent for single female heads). The likely reason for the high negative labor supply response in wives is the UBI allowing them to securely leave their jobs while pregnant or raising a newborn. As for the “sociological” response, while still heavily debated, it was found that a UBI had little to no effect on marriage stability. Other results in sociological response are seen simply as “a welcome bonus” (24), and are not included within this study.
• India’s Basic Income Experiment
  • TEST: The experiment applied to families with under $100 worth of income in eight different villages within Madhya Pradesh throughout June of 2011 to November of 2012. Initially, the amount was $2.20 per child and $4.40 per adult per month, however, this amount was increased by 50% in May of 2012 to give more benefit and to account for inflation.
  • RESULTS: Many positive effects of the implementation of a UBI were found in this test, especially in regards to general household well-being. Some effects to well-being include, but are not limited to, a reduction from 45% to 19% of affected families reporting food insecurity, an increase from 35.5% of affected households owning beds to an astounding 83%, and an increased phone ownership from 9% to 61%. Economically, the test also considerably impacted the communities. The villages affected by UBI reported at least “small improvement” to attendance in school, reporting up to 52% where the Self Employed Women’s Association was active and up to 72% where they were not. In villages where the UBI was active, time spent doing wage labor declined by over 45.2%, and was heavily replaced by the families engaging in more desirable farming work, whereas in the control tests, wage labor actually increased. Finally, in villages with a UBI, decrease in debt was reported more often, from 2% to 6% in villages with Self Employed Women’s Association presence, and from 2% to 17% in villages without.

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Welfare

Welfare

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jM3CK34U64Bsp_vdNkZBGI3VWcI9LkdZKgca27oC20c/edit

Food Stamps/SNAP

• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6022372/
  • “SNAP effectively alleviates food insecurity in terms of caloric, macronutrient, and micronutrient intake. Still, SNAP participants are struggling more than income-eligible and higher-income nonparticipants to meet key dietary guidelines. Future policies should ensure that this vital food assistance program addresses diet quality while reducing food insecurity.”
• https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/93169/err-263.pdf?v=1509.3
  • As expected, the impact of SNAP redemptions on employment was greater during the recession period (2008 to 2010) than either the pre-recession period (2001 to 2007) or the postrecession period (2011 to 2014) in both non metro and metro counties. In the recession period, SNAP redemptions contributed to about 1.0 job per $10,000 of additional SNAP redemptions in nonmetro counties and about 0.4 job per $10,000 of additional SNAP redemptions in metro counties.
• https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(16)30389-0/fulltext#secsect0035
  • This article restricted the analysis sample to households in sites using the SNAP EBT system and who reported receiving SNAP at baseline, prior to the SEBTC intervention. The analysis showed that although the SEBTC benefit resulted in increases in food expenditures and food security for this group, the SEBTC SNAP-like benefit resulted in only modest improvements in three of five nutrition outcomes collected by the study that are mostly considered healthy (fruits and vegetables with and without fried potatoes and dairy products).
• https://scholarworks.uark.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=scwkuht
  • Majority of vendors from each market did believe that SNAP increased sales, but the percentage of increased sales is generally not higher than 5 percent. A potentially more crucial impact of the program is an increase in customer base, and fewer vendors in each market saw their customer base increase due to SNAP acceptance. Still, a majority of vendors did feel that the customer base has increased, that number could rise if the amount of promotional materials increased, drawing in new market customers.
• https://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/assets/2014/11/hiahealthimpactsnapwhitepaper.pdf
  • The findings of this health impact assessment suggest that many of the SNAP policy changes considered to modify how eligibility or benefit levels are determined would likely place the health of low-income Americans at greater risk.
• https://lanekenworthy.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/1999sf-poverty.pdf

Medicaid/Medicare

• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2881446/
  • Based on the evidence to date, the health consequences of uninsurance are real, vary in magnitude in a clinically consistent manner, strengthen the argument for universal coverage in the United States, and underscore the importance of evidence-based determinations in providing health care to a diverse population of adults.
• https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pam.22199
  • In conclusion, access to Medicare insurance was associated with a significant increase in detection of cancers with recommended screening, as well as a decline in mortality from these cancers among women. Our estimates provide new evidence of Medicare’s impact on health outcomes for people in need of medical care.
• https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/files/wp2015-04.pdf
  • This study provides evidence of the impact of the Medicare Part D prescription drug insurance expansion on mortality for the above-65 population. Applying a difference in-differences framework that exploits the geographic differences in drug coverage across markets prior to reform, we find a statistically significant reduction in cardiovascular related deaths, saving between 7,000 and 26,000 lives in its first year.
• https://rfhp.gwhwi.org/uploads/4/3/3/5/43358451/how_have_aca_insurance_expansions_affected_health_outcomes__findings_from_the_literature.pdf
  • Conclusion: Medicare Part D has increased access to prescription medications for the elderly. However, continued analysis and research of drug utilization patterns among minorities should be conducted to ensure that all enrollees regardless of race are benefiting equally from Medicare Part D. Identification of these barriers can provide insights on how to improve the program to allow minorities to benefit equally from the Medicare Part D program and remove health inequalities.
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4145849/
  • “Using 2009 administrative data, we find that Medicaid has little if any impact on labor market outcomes or receipt of cash welfare or disability insurance, but increases receipt of food stamps.”

Public Transportation and Health

• https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/188/4/785/5301286
  • This systematic review found that initiating public transportation use was associated with modestly lower adiposity. Little evidence was available for other outcomes. Incorporating public transportation into sustainable urban design should be considered a potential mechanism for reducing overweight and obesity in the general population.
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3407915/
  • The nine papers identified in this review report a range of 8–33 minutes of additional physical activity associated with public transport use, with several papers reporting 12–15 minutes. Using bootstrapping analyses, we found that if public transport use by inactive adults was to increase, there would be a significant dose-response increase in the population level of sufficiently active adults in NSW.
• https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/obr.12987
  • In this study, we find more positive than negative findings when excluding the null findings regarding the association between access to public transport and childhood obesity.

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Government Assistance Doesn't Make People Lazy

Government Assistance Doesn’t Make People Lazy

You can also cite this doc for easier convenience

• https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/remahanna/files/151016_labor_supply_paper_draft_final.pdf
  • Looks at welfare programs in 7 countries
  • “[We] find no systematic evidence that cash transfer programs discourage work”
• https://www.nber.org/papers/w24670.pdf
  • Study of an Indonesian money transfer program (PKH)
  • “We find that PKH continues to have large static incentive effects on many of the targeted indicators, increasing usage of trained health professionals for childbirth dramatically and halving the share of children age 7-15 who are not enrolled in school. Wage labor for 13-15 year olds was reduced by at least one-third. We also begin to observe impacts on outcomes that may require cumulative investments: for example, six years later, we observe large reductions in stunting and some evidence of increased high school completion rates.”
• https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/736d/b6f030863a9f16b3633cac2f5e5f1e46df49.pdf
  • Study of an unconditional money transfer in Kenya
  • “[We] find no effects of the transfers on the proportion of working-age household members who spent any time in the preceding 12 months doing casual labor or working in a salaried job”
• https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2268552
  • Studies a government program in Uganda which is designed to get the poor and unemployed into self employment by giving them grants of an average of $382 per person to help them learn skills
  • They found that hours of work rose by 17 percent, and earnings by 38 percent
• https://www.nber.org/papers/w24248.pdf
  • A study on a cash transfer program in Mexico
  • “We find significant and positive impacts of the program on the likelihood and quality of employment”
• http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mille/MillerWherry_Prenatal2015.pdf
  • Looks at the long term effects of receiving Medicaid
  • “Cohorts who gained Medicaid eligibility in utero have higher high school graduation rates and we find evidence suggesting that they have higher incomes in adulthood”
• https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/13244/755330REVISED000Revised0June0402014.pdf?sequence=8&isAllowed=y
  • Study of a cash transfer programme in the Philippines
  • “Despite the additional household income provided to poor families under Pantawid Pamilya, the impact evaluation did not find any evidence that beneficiary households worked less or made less effort to obtain more work”
• http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/617631468001808739/pdf/WPS6886.pdf
  • Looks at whether people who got cash transfers would waste it on tobacco and alcohol
  • “There is clear evidence that transfers are not consistently used for alcohol or tobacco in any of these environments”
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4145849/
  • Looks at the effects of Medicaid on employment in Oregon
  • “Using 2009 administrative data, we find that Medicaid has little if any impact on labor market outcomes or receipt of cash welfare or disability insurance, but increases receipt of food stamps.”
• http://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/161361/Report_The%20Basic%20Income%20Experiment%2020172018%20in%20Finland.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
  • Looks at a UBI experiment in Finland
  • “According to the analysis of the register data, basic income recipients were no better or worse at finding employment than those in the control group during the first year of the experiment, and in this respect there are no statistically significant differences between the groups. The recipients of basic income had half a day more of employment in the open labour market than the control group.”
• https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220380802150730
  • Looks at a welfare program in Mexico
  • “Utilising the experimental design of PROGRESA’s evaluation sample, we find that the programme does not have any significant effect on adult labour force participation and leisure time.”

• [Impact evaluation of a conditional cash transfer program

  IFPRI : International Food Policy Research Institute](https://www.ifpri.org/publication/impact-evaluation-conditional-cash-transfer-program-0)

  • Study on a welfare program in Nicaragua
  • “Labor market participation was apparently little changed with the program, though there was an indication of slightly fewer hours worked, on average, in the last week”
• https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00148-012-0458-0
  • Looks at welfare programs in three Latin American countries
  • “Comparable results for the three countries indicate that the effects that the programs have had on the labor supply of participating adults have been mostly negative but are nonetheless small and not statistically significant”
• https://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~simpson/JOLE1993.pdf
  • Looks at UBI experiments in Canada and the USA
  • “Few adverse effects have been found to date. Those adverse effects found, such as work response, are smaller than would have been expected without experimentation.”
• https://www.marketplace.org/2016/12/20/dauphin/
  • Talks about a UBI experiment in the 70s in Canada
  • “The initial results are striking: the vast majority of Mincome participants kept working.”
  • “Primary wage earners worked a little less, but only slightly.”
  • “Married women backed off too, but mostly to take longer maternity leaves.”
  • “There was a drop in work by teenage boys, but Forget says many simply were able to stay in high school longer. Their families weren’t as desperate for another breadwinner.”
• [https://www.scielo.br/pdf/ee/v40n2/v40n2a01.pdf](https://www.scielo.br/pdf/ee/v40n2/v40n2a01.pdf)
  • Look at a welfare program in Brazil
  • “In sum, our results do not show significant effects of the Brazilian CCT programmes on either the labour market participation or the supply of hours of men and women. Rather, our results seem to be compatible with a story that CCT programmes do not affect the labour supply of adult males and females. In fact, this contention seems to be in line with the empirical literature that uses individual data and compare treatment and control groups’ outcomes.”
• https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2439488
  • Study in Uganda where they give $150 in business grants
  • “These results show that a package of $150 cash ($375 in PPP terms), five days of business training, and ongoing supervision led to a doubling of new non-farm enterprises and a significant rise in incomes among extremely poor and conflict-affected villagers, most of whom were women who had never operated such an enterprise before.
• https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150331074345.htm
  • Study in 18 European countries
  • “Sociologists Dr Kjetil van der Wel and Dr Knut Halvorsen examined responses to the statement ‘I would enjoy having a paid job even if I did not need the money’ put to the interviewees for the European Social Survey in 2010”
  • “The researchers, of Oslo and Akershus University College, Norway, found that the more a country paid to the unemployed or sick, and invested in employment schemes, the more its likely people were likely to agree with the statement, whether employed or not.”
• https://www.nber.org/chapters/c11973.pdf
  • Looks at the Earned Income Tax Credit in the United States
  • “The empirical evidence on labor supply and marriage indicates that the incentives of the EITC are remarkably favorable given the resources transferred. Studies of the effects of the EITC on employment imply that the credit has sharply increased the fraction of single mothers who work.”

Government Spending and Macroeconomic Growth

• Sharpe 2013
  • No, the government does not cause crowding out when it spends
  • “It seems policymakers can no longer use financial crowding-out theory to validate fiscal withdrawal within sovereign economies.”
  • Translation: The justifications for austerity are nonsense