紧急经济援助对就业与收入的影响

We examine the labor supply effects of short-term income transfers for families experiencing a housing crisis. We link callers to an emergency assistance homelessness prevention hotline to their federal tax records and measure their earnings in the years surrounding their calls. Our methodology exploits quasi-random variation in the availability of assistance to compare similar families receiving and not receiving funds. Looking up to four years post-assistance, we find evidence, especially for the lowest earners, of earnings gains, and overall we find no evidence that assistance lowers earnings. Our results indicate that any income effect of temporary transfers for those in crisis is minimal and that these targeted transfers may convey labor market benefits for the poorest of the poor.