Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

This paper will examine trends in the incomes of families with children from 1993 to 2013. It will divide children into twenty equal groups (ventiles) ranked by their family’s private income. The paper will analyze how the level and composition of income of children in each ventile changed between 1993 and 2012. This paper will present a series of income composition graphs that illustrate how the safety net has changed over time, and how different safety programs work together to help families at different points along the income distribution. For example, this paper will provide data on how much earnings, the EITC, TANF, and SNAP contribute to the income of families with children and how that has changed over time.

This analysis will provide another way to analyze how changes in the 1996 welfare law impacted families at different points of the income distribution. In a second, separate question, this paper will analyze the recent recession and will therefore show how the safety net responded to help families during a period of weakness in the labor market.

This study will use data from March Current Population Survey. The income measure used will take into account the impact of taxes, non-cash benefits and will correct for the underreporting of TANF, SNAP, and SSI using the Urban Institute’s TRIM model. The use of these corrected data is very important contribution of this paper to this literature given the well-known and growing problem of underreporting of benefits in the CPS. For example, TRIM counts $71 billion in SNAP payments for calendar year 2012, compared with $41 billion in the uncorrected Census data. The TRIM total is similar to the actual benefit payments of $75 billion in U.S. Department of Agriculture records.