Impact of the Chicago Earned Income Tax Periodic Payment intervention on food security

Flavia Cristina Drumond Andrade; Karen Z Kramer; Andrew Greenlee; Adam Nephi Williams; Ruby Mendenhall

doi:10.1016/j.pmedr.2019.100993

Impact of the Chicago Earned Income Tax Periodic Payment intervention on food security

Prev Med Rep. 2019 Nov 6:16:100993. doi: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2019.100993. eCollection 2019 Dec.

Authors

Flavia Cristina Drumond Andrade¹, Karen Z Kramer², Andrew Greenlee³, Adam Nephi Williams², Ruby Mendenhall⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Social Work, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.
² Department of Human Development and Family Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.
³ Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.
⁴ Departments of Sociology and African American Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.

Abstract

This article examines the Earned Income Tax Credit Periodic Payment Pilot and its effectiveness in reducing food insecurity for low-income households. Low-income families in Chicago who were eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit provided data over four waves of data collection between 2014 and 2015. We utilize longitudinal random effects logit models to test the likelihood of experiencing food insecurity. The sample was composed mostly by women with low educational levels. The intervention significantly decreased the likelihood of experiencing food insecurity over time (T2: β = -0.23, p = .581; T3: β = -0.89, p < .10; T4: β = -2.21, p < .01). The Periodic Payment Pilot seems effective at reducing food insecurity in low-income families. Further research should examine how changes to the Earned Income Tax Credit payment distribution could improve the lives of low-income families, specifically concerning food insecurity.

Keywords: Earned Income Tax Credit; Food insecurity; Intervention; Periodic payment.