Helping working families: the earned income tax credit

An overview of the earned income tax credit. A history of the EITC. Mechanics of the EITC. The EITC, the Child Tax Credit, and the income tax. Provisions of the 2001 EITC. The Tax Act of 2001. State EITC plans.

Who benefits from the EITC? Data and methods. The EITC recipient population in 1996. Changes in the EITC recipient population. The impact of the EITC on the poverty rate.

The EITC and the labor market. Labor supply and the EITC. The impact of the EITC on wage rates.

The EITC and the family. Marriage bonuses and penalties. Marriage penalty reform in the 2001 Tax Act. Does the EITC affect marriage?

The EITC and other antipoverty programs. The minimum wage. The welfare system. Other approaches.

The efficiency cost of the EITC. Triest's study of an EITC expansion. Browning's study of an EITC expansion. Liebman's study of the EITC.

EITC compliance issues. The EITC error rate. New initiatives to reduce the EITC error rate

Reforming the EITC. A proposed reform of the EITC. Our proposed EITC, the Child Tax Credit, and the income tax. Should the EITC and the Child Tax Credit be combined? Comparison with other EITC reform proposals. The EITC reform adopted in the 2001 Tax Act. Improving EITC compliance

The EITC in the twenty-first century.