James Ziliak - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by James Ziliak

Food Stamps on an earlier version. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do n... more Food Stamps on an earlier version. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of any sponsoring agency. IRP Publications (discussion papers, special reports, Fast Focus, and the newsletter Focus) are available on the Internet. The IRP Web site can be accessed at the following address:

We examined the effects of macroeconomic performance and social policy on the extent and depth of... more We examined the effects of macroeconomic performance and social policy on the extent and depth of poverty in America using state-level panel data from the 1981–2000 waves of the Current Population Survey. We found that a strong macroeconomy at both the state and national levels reduced both the number of families who were living in poverty and the severity of poverty. The magnitude and source of these antipoverty effects, however, were not uniform across family structures and racial groups or necessarily over time. While gains in the eradication of poverty, in general, were tempered by rising wage inequality, simulations indicated that female-headed families and families that were headed by black persons experienced substantial reductions in poverty in the 1990s largely because of the growth in median wages. An auxiliary time-series analysis suggests that the expansions in the federal Earned Income Tax Credit of the 1990s accounted for upward of 50% of the reduction in after-tax inc...

Journal of Political Economy, 2022

We estimate the effect of welfare reform on the intergenerational transmission of welfare partici... more We estimate the effect of welfare reform on the intergenerational transmission of welfare participation using a long panel of mother-daughter pairs over the survey period 1968-2013 in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Because states implemented welfare reform at different times starting in 1992, the cross-state variation over time permits us to quasi-experimentally separate out the effect of mothers' participation on daughters' welfare choice in the pre-and post-welfare reform periods. Our empirical framework also addresses potential issues in identifying a causal pathway from parent to child that arise from correlated unobservables in welfare decisions, misclassification error in survey reports, life-cycle differences in measuring the parent and child's age of welfare usage, and cross-state mobility. We find that a mother's welfare participation increased her daughter's odds of participation as an adult by around 25 to 35 percentage points, but that welfare reform attenuated this transmission by at least 50 percent, or at least 30 percent over the baseline odds of participation. However, when we broaden the definition of welfare received by the daughter to also include assistance from means-tested food or disability assistance, then the transmission from mother to daughter does not decrease after welfare reform. This seems to be a consequence of persistence in intergenerational poverty status.

Fiscal Studies, 2020

We examine trends in employment, earnings, and incomes over the last two decades in the United St... more We examine trends in employment, earnings, and incomes over the last two decades in the United States, and how the safety net has responded to changing fortunes, including the shutdown of the economy in response to the Covid-19 Pandemic. The U.S. safety net is a patchwork of different programs providing in-kind as well as cash benefits and had many holes prior to the Pandemic. In addition, few of the programs are designed explicitly as automatic stabilizers. We show that the safety net response to employment losses in the Covid-19 Pandemic largely consists only of increased support from unemployment insurance and food assistance programs, which did not replace the lost income for many households. We discuss possible options to reform social assistance in America that may provide more robust income floors in times of economic downturns.

Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, 2015

This paper assesses the data infrastructure needed for future research and policy evaluation on i... more This paper assesses the data infrastructure needed for future research and policy evaluation on income, program participation, poverty, and financial vulnerability in the United States. I present a broad-based discussion of research needs on the long-term consequences of income inequality and mobility, transferprogram participation and intergenerational dependence, poverty measurement and poverty persistence, and material deprivation. I summarize what information we currently collect in U.S. household panels, highlighting specific challenges such as earnings nonresponse and transfer-income underreporting. I conclude that a first priority is to improve the quality, scale, and scope of currently fielded surveys, including linked survey-administrative data, before embarking on a new longitudinal panel to address research on inequality, poverty, and material well being.

The Future of Children, 2014

The Future of Children promotes effective policies and programs for children by providing timely,... more The Future of Children promotes effective policies and programs for children by providing timely, objective information based on the best available research. Our Research Report series complements The Future of Children journal by focusing in depth on a contemporary issue of children's wellbeing, presenting the latest research and explaining its implications for policy in a succinct and accessible format. The Future of Children would like to thank the University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research for financial support through funding by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service, contract number AG-3198-B-10-0028/AG-3198-K-0057. The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the authors and should not be construed as representing the opinions of any sponsoring agency.

Economic Conditions and Welfare Reform, 1999

Economic conditions and welfare reform / Sheldon Danziger, editor. p. cm. Includes bibliographica... more Economic conditions and welfare reform / Sheldon Danziger, editor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.

for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper that circulated under the title "Welfare... more for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper that circulated under the title "Welfare Reform and Household Saving." This project was supported under grant number 00ASPEE355A from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the authors and should not be construed as representing the opinions or policy of any agency of the Federal Government. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Up-to-date information about CPR's research projects and other activities is available from our W... more Up-to-date information about CPR's research projects and other activities is available from our World Wide Web site at www-cpr.maxwell.syr.edu. All recent working papers and Policy Briefs can be read and/or printed from there as well.

In recent years, approximately 20 percent of Americans participated in at least one of the U.S. D... more In recent years, approximately 20 percent of Americans participated in at least one of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) 15 food assistance programs at some point during the year, the largest of which are the Food Stamp Program, the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs, the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and the Child and Adult Care Food Program. In fiscal year 2006, 26.7 million people participated in the Food Stamp Program in an average month (receiving on average $94 in benefits per month), while 30 million children participated in the National School Lunch Program on any given school day (totaling 5 billion lunches served in the year).

Although the Food Stamp Program is the largest entitlement program remaining in the social safety... more Although the Food Stamp Program is the largest entitlement program remaining in the social safety net, comparatively little is known about the potential benefits that the program may confer on recipients. In this paper we examine an important dimension of well being, mental health, and the extent to which participation in the Food Stamp Program may attenuate the effect of food insufficiency on mental health status. Using data from a nationally representative sample of families in the 2001 Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) we model the probability of being severely emotionally distressed as a function of food insufficiency and other known risk factors for poor mental health. We allow participation in the Food Stamp Program to have a direct impact on mental health, and then test whether food stamp participation mediates the effect of food insufficiency on emotional distress. Our model admits the possibility for simultaneity between food insufficiency, food stamp participation, and mental health status, and thus we employ an instrumental variables estimator in our analysis. We find that food insufficiency has a sizable deleterious effect on the chances of poor mental health, but that participation in the Food Stamp Program mitigates this negative effect between 20 and 50 percent depending on the ex ante risk of emotional distress. This research provides the first evidence that the Food Stamp Program has an important positive spill-over effect on mental health through its mediation of household food insufficiency.

The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the author and should not be co... more The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the author and should not be construed as representing the opinions or policy of any agency of the Federal government.

Southern Economic Journal, 2003

Southern Economic Journal 2003, 69(4), 903-919 Food Stamp Caseloads over the Business Cycle ... W... more Southern Economic Journal 2003, 69(4), 903-919 Food Stamp Caseloads over the Business Cycle ... We use a dynamic model of food stamp caseloads with state-level panel data to estimate the impact of the business cycle on food stamp caseloads in the era of welfare reform. ...

Social Science Quarterly, 2008

Th is study examines the ways in which enrollment in the food stamp program aff ects the mental h... more Th is study examines the ways in which enrollment in the food stamp program aff ects the mental health status of enrollees. Th e results fi nd that the negative mental health eff ects associated with food insuffi ciency are higher among food stamp participants than nonparticipants. It is estimated that 35.1 million people lived in food-insecure households (Nord, Andrews, and Carlson, 2006) in 2005. Th is means that at some point in the previous year, due to scarce household resources, these families were unable to acquire enough food or were uncertain of having enough food to meet their basic needs. Food insuffi ciency is defi ned as not having enough to eat periodically over the previous 12 months and is a more severe level of food insecurity. Th is study examines food insuffi ciency, rather than food insecurity, due to its relation to food expenditures, and nutritional intake (Basiotis, 1992; Cristofar and Basiotis, 1992).

Labour Economics, 2011

We offer new evidence on earnings volatility of men and women in the United States over the past ... more We offer new evidence on earnings volatility of men and women in the United States over the past four decades by using matched data from the March Current Population Survey. We construct a measure of total volatility that encompasses both permanent and transitory instability, and that admits employment transitions and losses from self employment. We also present a detailed decomposition of earnings volatility to account for changing shares in employment probabilities, conditional variances of continuous workers, and conditional mean variances from labor-force entry and exit. Our results show that earnings volatility among men increased by 15 percent from the early 1970s to mid 1980s, while women's volatility fell, and each stabilized thereafter. However, this pooled series masks important heterogeneity in volatility levels and trends across education groups and marital status. We find that men's earnings volatility is increasingly accounted for by employment transitions, especially exits, while the share of women's volatility accounted for by continuous workers rose, each of which highlights the importance of allowing for periods of non-work in volatility studies.

Journal of Labor Economics, 2011

Down from the Mountain: Skill Upgrading and Wages in Appalachia * Despite evidence that skilled l... more Down from the Mountain: Skill Upgrading and Wages in Appalachia * Despite evidence that skilled labor is increasingly concentrated in cities, whether regional wage inequality is predominantly due to differences in skill levels or returns is unknown. We compare Appalachia, with its wide mix of urban and rural areas, to other parts of the U.S., and find that gaps in both skill levels and returns account for the lack of high wage male workers. For women, skill shortages are important across the distribution. Because rural wage gaps are insignificant, our results suggest that widening wage inequality between Appalachia and the rest of the U.S. owes to a shortage of skilled cities.

The Journal of Human Resources, 2000

We use state-level monthly panel data to assess the relative contributions of the macroeconomy an... more We use state-level monthly panel data to assess the relative contributions of the macroeconomy and welfare reform in accounting for the 1993 to 1996 decline in AFDC caseloads. Our results suggest that the decline in per capita AFDC caseloads is attributable largely to the economic conditions in states and not to waivers from federal welfare policies. Nationwide, we attribute 66 percent of the decline to the macroeconomy. However, we do find substantial heterogeneity in the impact and timing of alternative waivers on AFDC caseloads. States with waivers impacting parental responsibilities experienced greater caseload declines than states with waivers that made work more attractive. Overall, our model predicts that had it not been for the influence of economic factors, welfare reform would not have led to any decrease in aggregate caseloads.

The Journal of Human Resources, 2003

Although the Food Stamp Program is the largest universal entitlement program in the social safety... more Although the Food Stamp Program is the largest universal entitlement program in the social safety net, little is known about its stabilizing role in household income and consumption. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics spanning1980-1999, we estimate the volatility of income with and without food stamps coupled with a variance decomposition of consumption. Among families at high ex ante risk of food stamp participation food stamps reduced income volatility by about 12 percent and food consumption volatility by about 14 percent. There was, however, a marked decline in consumption smoothing benefits of the program in the early 1990s relative to the 1980s.

Economic Inquiry, 2013

We use two-year panels from the Current Population Survey to provide a detailed accounting of fam... more We use two-year panels from the Current Population Survey to provide a detailed accounting of family income volatility from 1980 to 2009. Volatility doubled overall, and the increase was most pronounced among the top 1% of the income distribution, but in any given year the level of volatility among the bottom 10% exceeds that of the top. The increased volatility comes from higher instability of head and spouse earnings, other nonlabor income, and from reduced covariance between these income sources with the tax system. This suggests that current tax policy is less effective in mitigating income shocks than previous decades.