Medicaid and household savings behavior: New evidence from tax refunds

This paper estimates the effect of Medicaid access on the propensity of households to save or repay debt from their tax refunds. Data come from the tax records and survey responses of households that use an IRS free-file alliance online tax-preparation software to prepare their tax returns during the fiscal years 2013–2017. Findings suggest that […]

The Impact of the Gig-Economy on Financial Hardship among Low-Income Families

New work arrangements coordinated by gig-economy platforms offer workers discretion over their work schedules at the expense of traditional worker protections. We empirically measure the impact of expanding access to gigs on worker welfare, with a focus on low-income families. We are interested in the likelihood that a family experiences hardship, meaning they fail to […]

Home delinquency rates are lower among ACA Marketplace households: Evidence from a natural experiment

This brief uses administrative income tax data coupled with survey responses from roughly 5,000 households living near the poverty line to estimate how access to the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance Marketplaces have affected households’ experiences of extreme illiquidity, which is measured by delinquencies on home payments. To estimate this relationship, we exploit a natural […]