Effects of a Tax-Time Savings Experiment on Material and Health Care Hardship among Low-Income Filers. Issue 2 (4th March 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Despard, Mathieu R.; Taylor, Samuel; Ren, Chunhui; Russell, Blair; Grinstein-Weiss, Michal; Raghavan, Ramesh
• Is Part Of: Journal of poverty. Volume 22:Issue 2(2018)
• Page Start: 156
• Page End: 178
• Publication Date: 2018-03-04
• Subjects: Behavioral economics -- earned income tax credit -- health care hardship -- material hardship -- savings; Poverty -- United States -- Periodicals; Poor -- United States -- Periodicals; Public welfare -- United States -- Periodicals; 362.05
• DOI: 10.1080/10875549.2017.1348431
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1087-5549

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Material and health care hardship is common among households with low incomes and is associated with a host of adverse outcomes but can be mitigated with having savings. The authors assessed the effects of online tax-time savings interventions informed by behavioral economics on hardship among a sample of low- and moderate-income tax filers (N = 4, 738). The authors find that filers who received an intervention had a statistically significant, lower probability of both types of hardship 6 months after tax filing, compared to the control group. However, this result does not hold when incorporating household financial characteristics and prior hardship to models.