Is the Social Safety Net a Long-Term Investment? Large-Scale Evidence From the Food Stamps Program.

We use novel, large-scale data on 17.5 million Americans to study how a policy-driven increase in economic resources affects children's long-term outcomes. Using the 2000 Census and 2001-13 American Community Survey linked to the Social Security Administration's NUMIDENT, we leverage the county-level rollout of the Food Stamps program between 1961 and 1975.

The Effects of the Great Depression on Children's Intergenerational Mobility.

This article examines the role of the Great Depression in shaping the intergenerational mobility of some of the most upwardly mobile cohorts of the twentieth century. Using newly linked census and vital records from the Longitudinal, Intergenerational Family Electronic Micro-database, we examine the occupational and educational mobility of more than 265,000 sons and daughters born in Ohio and North Carolina. We find that the deepest and most protracted downturn in U.

How the 1963 Equal Pay Act and 1964 Civil Rights Act Shaped the Gender Gap in Pay.

In the 1960s, two landmark statutes-the Equal Pay and Civil Rights Acts-targeted the long-standing practice of employment discrimination against U.S. women.

The COVID-19 baby bump in the United States.

We use natality microdata covering the universe of US. births for 2015 to 2021 and California births from 2015 through February 2023 to examine childbearing responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that 60% of the 2020 decline in US fertility rates was driven by sharp reductions in births to foreign-born mothers although births to this group comprised only 22% of all US births in 2019.

Breathing new life into death certificates: Extracting handwritten cause of death in the LIFE-M project.

The demographic and epidemiological transitions of the past 200 years are well documented at an aggregate level. Understanding differences in individual and group risks for mortality during these transitions requires linkage between demographic data and detailed individual cause of death information. This paper describes the digitization of almost 185,000 causes of death for Ohio to supplement demographic information in the Longitudinal, Intergenerational Family Electronic Micro-database (LIFE-M).

Prep School for Poor Kids: The Long-Run Impacts of Head Start on Human Capital and Economic Self-Sufficiency.

This paper evaluates the long-run effects of Head Start using large-scale, restricted administrative data. Using the county rollout of Head Start between 1965 and 1980 and age-eligibility cutoffs for school entry, we find that Head Start generated large increases in adult human capital and economic self-sufficiency, including a 0.65-year increase in schooling, a 2.

THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF A HIGH NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE: EVIDENCE FROM THE 1966 FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT.

This paper examines the short and longer-term economic effects of the 1966 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) which increased the national minimum wage to its highest level of the 20th Century and extended coverage to an additional 9.1 million workers. Exploiting differences in the "bite" of the minimum wage due to regional variation in the standard of living and industry composition, this paper finds that the 1966 FLSA increased wages dramatically but reduced aggregate employment only modestly.

The Missing Baby Bust: The Consequences of the COVID-19 Pandemic for Contraceptive Use, Pregnancy, and Childbirth Among Low-Income Women.

Unlabelled: Multiple episodes in US history demonstrate that birth rates fall in response to recessions. However, the 2020 COVID-19 recession differed from earlier periods in that employment access to contraception and abortion fell, as reproductive health centers across the country temporarily closed or reduced their capacity. This paper exploits novel survey and administrative data to examine how reductions in access to reproductive health care during 2020 affected contraceptive efficacy among low-income women.

Does younger age at marriage affect divorce? Evidence from Johnson's Executive Order 11241.

Before President Johnson's Executive Order 11241 in August 1965, married men received lower draft priority for military service. As the Vietnam War escalated in the summer of 1965, anecdotal evidence suggests draft-eligible men sought marriage to lower their likelihood of serving. This paper quantifies the effects of these Vietnam-era policies on marriage and finds that they significantly reduced the age at first marriage and altered the choice of spouse.

Trends in Birth Rates After Elimination of Cost Sharing for Contraception by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Importance: Reducing out-of-pocket costs is associated with improved patterns of contraception use. It is unknown whether reducing out-of-pocket costs is associated with fewer births.

Objective: To evaluate changes in birth rates by income level among commercially insured women before (2008-2013) and after (2014-2018) the elimination of cost sharing for contraception under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Does Access to Family Planning Increase Children's Opportunities? Evidence from the War on Poverty and the Early Years of Title X.

This paper examines the relationship between parents' access to family planning and the economic resources of their children. Using the county-level introduction of U.S.

Five Decades of Remarkable but Slowing Change in U.S. Women's Economic and Social Status and Political Participation.

The last fifty years of women's social and economic progress have been lauded as the "grand gender convergence," the "second demographic transition," and the "rise of women"-terms pointing to the remarkable transformation in women's social and economic roles since the 1960s. Many metrics document these changes.

The War on Poverty's Experiment in Public Medicine: Community Health Centers and the Mortality of Older Americans.

This paper uses the rollout of the first Community Health Centers (CHCs) to study the longer-term health effects of increasing access to primary care. Within ten years, CHCs are associated with a reduction in age-adjusted mortality rates of 2 percent among those 50 and older. The implied 7 to 13 percent decrease in one-year mortality risk among beneficiaries amounts to 20 to 40 percent of the 1966 poor/non-poor mortality gap for this age group.

How Johnson Fought the War on Poverty: The Economics and Politics of Funding at the Office of Economic Opportunity.

This article presents a quantitative analysis of the geographic distribution of spending through the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act (EOA). Using newly assembled state- and county-level data, the results show that the Johnson administration directed funding in ways consistent with the War on Poverty's rhetoric of fighting poverty and racial discrimination: poorer areas and those with a greater share of nonwhite residents received systematically more funding. In contrast to New Deal spending, political variables explain very little of the variation in EOA funding.

DO FAMILY PLANNING PROGRAMS DECREASE POVERTY? EVIDENCE FROM PUBLIC CENSUS DATA.

This paper provides new evidence that family planning programs are associated with a decrease in the share of children and adults living in poverty. Our research design exploits the county roll-out of U.S.

Fifty Years of Family Planning: New Evidence on the Long-Run Effects of Increasing Access to Contraception.

This paper assembles new evidence on some of the longer-term consequences of U.S. family planning policies, defined in this paper as those increasing legal or financial access to modern contraceptives.

Reexamining the Impact of Family Planning Programs on US Fertility: Evidence from the War on Poverty and the Early Years of Title X().

Almost 50 years after domestic US family planning programs began, their effects on childbearing remain controversial. Using the county-level roll-out of these programs from 1964 to 1973, this paper reevaluates their shorter and longer term effects on US fertility rates. I find that the introduction of family planning is associated with significant and persistent reductions in fertility driven both by falling completed childbearing and childbearing delay.

"Momma's Got the Pill": How Anthony Comstock and Griswold v. Connecticut Shaped US Childbearing.

The 1960s ushered in a new era in US demographic history characterized by significantly lower fertility rates and smaller family sizes. What catalyzed these changes remains a matter of considerable debate. This paper exploits idiosyncratic variation in the language of "Comstock" statutes, enacted in the late 1800s, to quantify the role of the birth control pill in this transition.