Left Out:<i>Policy Diffusion and the Exclusion of Black Workers from Unemployment Insurance</i>

Rodems, Richard; Shaefer, H. Luke

doi:10.1017/ssh.2016.11

Cited by 28 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…given the racialized dynamics of the U.S. welfare state (Rodems and Shaefer 2016). We do not consider increased asset-testing as a promising policy option as continued means-testing will likely lead to further contraction of public insurance schemes in favor of new private schemes.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Avoiding Material Hardship: The Buffer Function of Wealth

Rodems¹,

Pfeffer²

2021

Preprint

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We assess how a variety of disruptive life-course events impact the well-being ofU.S. households and trace the importance of household wealth in helping families experiencing these events avoid entering a spell of material hardship. Using longitudinal data from two panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), we draw on direct measures of material hardship, disruptive events, and household assets. Regression and decomposition analyses reveal that the relationship between disruptive events and the likelihood of experiencing a new spell of material hardship strongly varies across the wealth distribution, suggesting that high household wealth provides an effective private safety net. By distinguishing different types of disruptive events, we also demonstrate that divorce, disability, and income instability entail the risk of falling into material hardship but also that this risk is effectively buffered by substantial wealth. Different types of hardship – namely, financial, food, and medical hardship – respond in similar ways.Like public insurance schemes, wealth insurance helps buffer the effects of disruptive events on material hardship, but unlike public insurance schemes, reliance on private wealth further stratifies the economic well-being of households. Policy options for addressing this highly stratified private insurance scheme includes disposing of the need for it by funding a more robust public insurance, for instance through wealth taxation.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Avoiding Material Hardship: The Buffer Function of Wealth

Rodems¹,

Pfeffer²

2021

Preprint

Self Cite

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“…Asset tests are also found in some European welfare states, but often involve a gradual tapering of benefits as net worth rises or cuts off at substantially higher levels, often approaching the levels needed to ‘self-insure’ documented in this contribution (Marchal et al, 2020). While a great deal could be learnt from the European experience with tapered but generous asset tests, we would emphasize potential unintended consequences of applying such an approach to the US context, particularly given the racialized dynamics of the US welfare state (Rodems and Luke Shaefer, 2016). We do not consider increased asset-testing a promising policy option as continued means-testing will likely lead to further contraction of public insurance schemes in favour of new private schemes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Avoiding material hardship: The buffer function of wealth

Rodems

Pfeffer

2021

Journal of European Social Policy

Self Cite

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We assess how a variety of disruptive life-course events impact the economic wellbeing of US households and trace the importance of household wealth in helping families who experience these events avoid entering a spell of material hardship. Using longitudinal data from two panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), we draw on direct measures of material hardship, disruptive events and household assets. Our analyses reveal that the relationship between disruptive events and the likelihood of experiencing a new spell of material hardship strongly varies across the wealth distribution, suggesting that high household wealth provides an effective private safety net. By distinguishing different types of disruptive events, we demonstrate that divorce, disability and income loss entail a risk of material hardship but also that this risk is effectively buffered by substantial wealth. Different types of hardship – namely, financial, food and medical hardship – respond in similar ways. Like public insurance schemes, wealth insurance helps buffer the effects of disruptive events on material hardship, but unlike public insurance schemes, reliance on private wealth further stratifies the economic wellbeing of households. Policy options for addressing this highly stratified private insurance scheme include disposing of the need for it by funding more robust public insurance, for instance through wealth taxation.

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“…UI caseloads—which include higher-earning workers alongside low and moderate earners—fell steadily as well. Originally designed to exclude many workers of color, UI has always failed to cover many lower-wage workers (Rodems and Shaefer 2016), a trend that continued over the last decade. Of the ARRA measures that made income supports more generous, only the changes to the tax credits (EITC, CTC, and ACTC) were made permanent.…”

Section: Summary and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Major Means-Tested and Income Support Programs for the Working Class, 2009–2019

Chang¹,

Romich²,

Ybarra³

2021

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Scie

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This article examines policy changes to and trends in five cash or near-cash income support programs for low-income workers and their families from 2009 to 2019. Our analyses show that the safety net expanded during the recession and then contracted via the tightening of eligibility rules and expiration of most temporary expansions for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), unemployment insurance (UI), and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). Expansions for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC) over the period 2009 to 2019 align with a decades-long trend of social welfare policy reinforcing or enforcing labor force participation. Caseloads fell mostly rapidly for UI, which is explicitly designed as countercyclical support; and for TANF, which maintained high levels of administrative burden. We conclude with a cross-program discussion of the state of the social safety net in the pandemic era and postpandemic recovery.

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Left Out:Policy Diffusion and the Exclusion of Black Workers from Unemployment Insurance

Cited by 28 publications

References 26 publications

Avoiding Material Hardship: The Buffer Function of Wealth

Avoiding Material Hardship: The Buffer Function of Wealth

Avoiding material hardship: The buffer function of wealth

Major Means-Tested and Income Support Programs for the Working Class, 2009–2019

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