TY  - JOUR
AU  - Hoynes, Hilary
AU  - Stabile, Mark
TI  - How do the U.S and Canadian Social Safety Nets Compare for Women and Children?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 23380
PY  - 2017
Y2  - May 2017
DO  - 10.3386/w23380
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w23380
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w23380.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Hilary W. Hoynes
Richard & Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy
University of California, Berkeley
2607 Hearst Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94720-7320
Tel: (510) 642-1166
E-Mail: hoynes@berkeley.edu

Mark Stabile
INSEAD
Bd de Constances 
77300 Fontainebleau
France
E-Mail: mark.stabile@insead.edu
M1  - published as Hilary W. Hoynes, Mark Stabile. "How Do the US and Canadian Social Safety Nets Compare for Women and Children?," in Philip Oreopoulos and David Card, organizers, "Small Differences II: Public Policies in Canada and the United States" The University of Chicago Press, Journal of Labor Economics volume 37, S2 (2019)

AB  - The past 25 years has seen substantial change in the social safety nets for families with children in the US and Canada. Both countries have moved away from cash welfare but the US has done so relying more exclusively on inwork benefits with work requirements. This paper examines this evolution across the two countries and examines the effects on employment and poverty.  In particular, we focus on the two largest programs over this period: the U.S. EITC and the Canadian NCB/CCTB.  In light of these policy changes, we examine trends in employment and poverty of the most affected families -- single mothers with less than a college degree -- across the two countries.  We find that employment improved substantially in both countries, absolutely and relative to a control group of single women without children. The cross-country differences in relative trends are mainly explained by differences in the labor market conditions. Poverty rates for single mothers also declined in both countries with more of the decline coming through market income in the U.S. and benefit income in Canada.
ER  -