Scraping By: Income and Program Participation After the Loss of Extended Unemployment Benefits

Jesse Rothstein and Robert Valletta

Department of Economics, Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley

Abstract: Despite unprecedented extensions of available unemployment insurance (UI) benefits during the “Great Recession” of 2007-09 and its aftermath, large numbers of recipients exhausted their maximum available UI benefits prior to finding new jobs. Using SIPP panel data and an eventstudy regression framework, we examine the household income patterns of individuals whose jobless spells outlast their UI benefits, comparing the periods following the 2001 and 2007-09 recessions. Job loss reduces household income roughly by half on average, and for UI recipients benefits replace just under half of this loss. Accordingly, when benefits end the household loses UI income equal to roughly one-quarter of total pre-separation household income (and about one-third of pre-exhaustion household income). Only a small portion of this loss is offset by increased income from food stamps and other safety net programs. The share of families with income below the poverty line nearly doubles. These patterns were generally similar following the 2001 and 2007-09 recessions and do not vary dramatically by household age or income prior to job loss.

Keywords: Social and Behavioral Sciences; Income; unemployment; benefits; extended; participants (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-02-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Scraping by: Income and Program Participation After the Loss of Extended Unemployment Benefits (2017)
Working Paper: Scraping By: Income and Program Participation After the Loss of Extended Unemployment Benefits (2017)
Working Paper: Scraping By: Income and Program Participation After the Loss of Extended Unemployment Benefits (2014)
Working Paper: Scraping By: Income and Program Participation After the Loss of Extended Unemployment Benefits (2014)
Working Paper: Scraping By: Income and Program Participation After the Loss of Extended Unemployment Benefits (2014)
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