Eight The Earned Income Tax Credit as an anti-poverty programme: palliative or cure?
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Phyllis Jeroslow
Abstract
One of the questions raised by the competition state thesis is what the consequences are for citizens of governments who are shifting social policies closer towards the needs of employers and the wider economy. Phyllis Jeroslow’s chapter deals with related questions in examining the impact of in-work tax credits on poverty in the US. Jeroslow focuses specifically on the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) in the US, but many of the lessons she highlights could apply anywhere. She illustrates the failings of the EITC as an anti-poverty strategy, indicating that, as a policy, its benefits are just as valuable to employers as they are to the poor. Indeed, the EITC appears just as likely to lock the poor into low-wage jobs and long-term poverty as it is to alleviate poverty, a fact brought home to the reader by Jeroslow’s reminder of the 35-year pedigree of such policies in the US.
Abstract
One of the questions raised by the competition state thesis is what the consequences are for citizens of governments who are shifting social policies closer towards the needs of employers and the wider economy. Phyllis Jeroslow’s chapter deals with related questions in examining the impact of in-work tax credits on poverty in the US. Jeroslow focuses specifically on the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) in the US, but many of the lessons she highlights could apply anywhere. She illustrates the failings of the EITC as an anti-poverty strategy, indicating that, as a policy, its benefits are just as valuable to employers as they are to the poor. Indeed, the EITC appears just as likely to lock the poor into low-wage jobs and long-term poverty as it is to alleviate poverty, a fact brought home to the reader by Jeroslow’s reminder of the 35-year pedigree of such policies in the US.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Notes on contributors v
- Introduction xi
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Contemporary debates and developments in the UK
- Introducing Universal Credit 3
- Reconciling fuel poverty and climate change policy under the Coalition government: Green Deal or no deal? 23
- Doctors in the driving seat? Reforms in NHS primary care and commissioning 47
- Financing later life: pensions, care, housing equity and the new politics of old age 67
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Contributions from the Social Policy Association/East Asian Social Policy Research Network Conference of 2012
- It’s time to move on from ‘race’? The official ‘invisibilisation’ of minority ethnic disadvantage 93
- Corporations as political actors: new perspectives for health policy research 113
- Square pegs and round holes: extending existing typologies fails to capture the complexities of Chinese social policy 129
- The Earned Income Tax Credit as an anti-poverty programme: palliative or cure? 149
- Social policy and culture: the cases of Japan and South Korea 167
- Load-shedding and reloading: changes in government responsibility – the case of Israeli immigration and integration policy 2004–10 183
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Themed section: work, employment and insecurity
- ‘What unemployment means’ three decades and two recessions later 207
- Precarious employment and EU employment regulation 227
- How do activation policies affect social citizenship? The issue of autonomy 249
- Modernising social security for lone parents: avoiding fertility and unemployment traps when reforming social policy in Northern Europe 271
- Women, families and the ‘Great Recession’ in the UK 293
- Index 315
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Notes on contributors v
- Introduction xi
-
Contemporary debates and developments in the UK
- Introducing Universal Credit 3
- Reconciling fuel poverty and climate change policy under the Coalition government: Green Deal or no deal? 23
- Doctors in the driving seat? Reforms in NHS primary care and commissioning 47
- Financing later life: pensions, care, housing equity and the new politics of old age 67
-
Contributions from the Social Policy Association/East Asian Social Policy Research Network Conference of 2012
- It’s time to move on from ‘race’? The official ‘invisibilisation’ of minority ethnic disadvantage 93
- Corporations as political actors: new perspectives for health policy research 113
- Square pegs and round holes: extending existing typologies fails to capture the complexities of Chinese social policy 129
- The Earned Income Tax Credit as an anti-poverty programme: palliative or cure? 149
- Social policy and culture: the cases of Japan and South Korea 167
- Load-shedding and reloading: changes in government responsibility – the case of Israeli immigration and integration policy 2004–10 183
-
Themed section: work, employment and insecurity
- ‘What unemployment means’ three decades and two recessions later 207
- Precarious employment and EU employment regulation 227
- How do activation policies affect social citizenship? The issue of autonomy 249
- Modernising social security for lone parents: avoiding fertility and unemployment traps when reforming social policy in Northern Europe 271
- Women, families and the ‘Great Recession’ in the UK 293
- Index 315
