Urban Institute

About: Urban Institute is a nonprofit organization based out in Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Medicaid & Population. The organization has 927 authors who have published 2330 publications receiving 86426 citations.

The Kids Are Alright? Children's Well-Being and the Rise in Cohabitation

Abstract: Children living with cohabiting, unmarried parents are more likely to be poor, food insecure, read to infrequently, and exhibit behavioral problems than children living with married couples but less likely to be poor and food insecure than those living with a single mother. However, between 1997 and 1999, children living with cohabiting parents experienced an 11.2 percentage point decline in poverty -- a far greater decline that the 3.2 point drop overall. Increases in work effort, particularly among mothers, is the most significant factor behind this decline in poverty.

Medicaid disproportionate share and other special financing programs.

Abstract: Medicaid disproportionate share hospital (DSH) and related programs, such as provider-specific taxes or intergovernmental transfers (IGTs), help support uncompensated care and effectively reduce State Medicaid expenditures by increasing Federal matching funds. We analyze the uses of these funds, based on a survey completed by 39 States and case studies of 6 States. We find that only a small share of these funds were available to cover the costs of uncompensated care. One method to ensure that funds are used for health care would be to reprogram funds into health insurance subsidies. An alternative to improve equity of funding across the Nation would be to create a substitute Federal grant program to directly support uncompensated care.

Social Security Spouse and Survivor Benefits for the Modern Family

Abstract: Our project uses DYNASIM3, the Urban Institute's dynamic microsimulation model of the U.S. population, to simulate several alternative systems of Social Security auxiliary benefits. We specifically consider earnings sharing, a system in which a husband's and a wife's earnings records are combined and averaged over the duration of their marriage when computing Social Security benefits. We also consider whether other changes to Social Security's benefit computations - like caregiver credits, minimum benefits, and more modest changes to spouse/survivor benefits - could improve program adequacy and horizontal equity with less complexity and fewer transition difficulties relative to earnings sharing. Each proposal we examine substitutes existing spouse (and, sometimes, all or parts of survivor) benefits with mechanisms that explicitly acknowledge marital partnerships, are more neutral with respect to marriage, and/or better target economically vulnerable people. All proposals are roughly cost-equivalent in 2050. We find that all three packages - earnings sharing, replacement of most of the spouse benefit with a minimum, and full spouse replacement with caregiver credits - reduced poverty modestly and made lifetime benefits more similar for couples paying the same amount in taxes relative to current law scheduled. The earnings-sharing proposal, however, only achieved the poverty reduction with significant adjustments to the treatment of surviving spouses through a self-financed survivor benefit. The packages reveal important tradeoffs among beneficiary groups, with particular tensions between workers and non-workers, and married, never married, divorced, and widowed persons.

What Do Individual Development Accounts Do? Evidence from a Controlled Experiment

Abstract: This paper evaluates the first controlled field experiment on Individual Development Accounts (IDAs). Including their own contributions and matching funds, treatment group members could accumulate up to $6,750 for home purchase or $4,500 for other qualified uses. Almost all treatment group members opened accounts, but many withdrew the balances for unqualified purposes. For black renters at baseline, the IDA raised home ownership rates by almost 10 percentage points over 4 years, but reduced financial assets and business ownership. White renters experienced no home ownership effects, but business equity rose. Home owners used the IDA in different ways than renters.