While research indicates that in-kind benefits such as Medicaid or food stamps have a positive impact on children, additional research is needed about the effects of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a modern cash assistance program with work and recertification requirements. With this award, Grove and Kessler will estimate the causal effects of time on TANF assistance among more than 200,000 children in New York City whose families received cash assistance in the early 2000s. The team will leverage newly linked administrative data from the NYC Department of Social Services, the New York State Department of Labor, NYC Public Schools, and the National Student Clearinghouse to control for receipt of other public benefits and examine academic achievement, earnings, and safety net benefit receipt among individuals into early adulthood. An intensive-margin approach allows the team to compare outcomes among children with shorter vs. longer exposure to cash assistance and control for confounding variables. Additional analyses will explore differential effects by age of first receipt, family structure, and race and ethnicity. The team will also explore whether short-term educational improvements are a mechanism for longer-term economic outcomes.
What are the long-term effects of receiving cash assistance on youth educational and socioeconomic outcomes?
