Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

High marginal tax rates (MTR) can be a barrier for low- and moderate-income families and individuals. Policymakers and researchers have expressed concerns about how high MTR may alter decisions about work by changing the incentives that people face. Whereas negative, or low, MTR may encourage individuals to work, high MTR may discourage them from working. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation) funded a study to conduct focus groups with safety net program participants to better understand how MTR affect families’ decisions about work. In particular, the study assesses families’ knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors around MTR. This presentation will share initial findings from the focus groups, highlighting family perspectives and decision-making processes around employment.

Researchers from Insight Policy Research will conduct a series of nine focus groups with families in Virginia, Ohio, and California in summer 2019. The focus group respondents will be active beneficiaries of TANF, Child Care Development Fund, HUD-administered rental assistance, SNAP, EITC, and/or Medicaid/ CHIP. Given the growing interest in promoting self-sufficiency through work and reducing barriers to employment, the study aims to address critical national research questions. Research objectives include: (1) assessing families’ perceptions about how changes in earnings impact their net financial resources, (2) exploring how well families understand information about the relationship between earnings and safety net benefits and identifying common misperceptions, (3) understanding how families’ perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs about the relationship between earnings and safety net benefits influence their attitude towards employment, and (4) assessing how, if at all, participant perceptions vary across states and safety net programs. The researchers will work with community-based organizations in each of the selected locations to recruit study respondents and host the focus groups. Findings from the study will complement ASPE’s cross-cutting quantitative modeling work on MTR using CPS-ASEC data, and will ensure that policies and educational programs are informed by qualitative data on families’ perceptions and experiences.