Full Citation
Title: How Does the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Impact Time Spent Assisting Adults?
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2025
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI:
NSFID:
PMCID:
PMID:
Abstract: Unpaid caregiving for adults is crucial to maintaining health, independence, and well-being at older ages, and serves as a cornerstone of the U.S. healthcare system. It is valued at about $600 billion dollars annually, which is more than all out-of-pocket spending on healthcare. 1 In their working years, caregivers potentially face trade-offs between unpaid caregiving and paid work and between caregiving for children and caregiving for adult family members. In recent years, the likelihood of sandwiched care demands from children and parents (or other adults) has increased. As of 2014, one in six workers were estimated to provide care to an aging adult, and over one-quarter of this group also had a dependent child. 2 Poor households face more costly tradeoffs between paid work and caregiving because the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)-one of the nation's largest antipoverty programs for families with children-requires recipients to work and provides benefits based on the level of earnings. About 23 million U.S. households received the EITC in 2022. 3 Thus, it is critical to assess whether the EITC reduces assistance to adult family members. This brief summarizes the findings of my recent paper, 4 which is the first to examine the effect of the EITC on unpaid caregiving for adults. I examined these effects using a sample of unmarried mothers ages 25-54 without a college degree who report detailed time diary data in the
Url: https://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1273&context=lerner
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Strauss, Anna Wiersma
Publisher: Syracuse University
Data Collections: IPUMS Time Use - ATUS
Topics: Aging and Retirement, Population Health and Health Systems, Poverty and Welfare
Countries: