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The Impact of the Earned Income Tax Credit on Poverty: Analyzing the Dimensions by Race and Immigration

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The Review of Black Political Economy

Abstract

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) on poverty transitions, with an emphasis on native-born African–Americans and immigration. A probit model is estimated using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), which evaluates the impact of EITC participation and immigration on transitions out of poverty. The EITC is found to be a useful tool in combating poverty and is effective for African–Americans, though only for women. More importantly, the results show that the implementation of state-level EITCs can mitigate the adverse effects of immigration for native-born African–Americans.

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Notes

  1. Though this debate has not been resolved.

  2. Review of Black Political Economy Vol.23, Special Issue 2003

  3. Programs to perform this matching are available from the NBER website. The programs itself do not remove the matches, but provide guidance towards how to remove the invalid matches.

  4. The change in earned-income-to-needs ratio is continuous so I estimate a standard least-squares regression.

  5. I also split the sample further by gender but the effects did not differ.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the editor and an anonymous referee for comments and helpful suggestions. The research also benefitted from the National Poverty Center Workshop on Analyzing Poverty. This work was supported by a grant from the University of Toledo’s Summer Research Award and Fellowship Program.

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Correspondence to Olugbenga Ajilore.

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Ajilore, O. The Impact of the Earned Income Tax Credit on Poverty: Analyzing the Dimensions by Race and Immigration. Rev Black Polit Econ 35, 117–127 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12114-008-9030-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12114-008-9030-2

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