Question

1). The retirement benefit of the Social Security program is considered a progressive benefit with a regressive financing scheme.

(1) How is the Social Security benefit progressive?

(2) How is its financing scheme regressive?

2). One of the main goals of the ACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, aka Obamacare) was to provide affordable health care to the uninsured.
1. What were the THREE primary pieces of the law that were meant to provide coverage for everyone (other than undocumented immigrants, who were not going to be covered)?
2. Which of these three pieces was not able to be fully enacted because of a Supreme Court case in 2012 (ruled unconstitutional) and what happened to coverage for the targeted group?

3). What is felon disenfranchisement? How do these policies differ across states (specifically, who is disenfranchised in different states)? What are the implications of these policies for our democratic political system?

4). One of the hopes around the creation of the Section 8 Housing Choice Program was to promote families’ economic and social mobility.

(1) Describe, very briefly (few words), what the Section 8 housing program is.
(2) How might this program promote such mobility?
(3) What is one reason that the program has not been as successful as hoped?

5). Many researchers and policymakers have been advocating for investment in early childhood education programs. Provide three (3) arguments for why these may be worthwhile investments.

6). Based on the chart below:

TANF* Families Have Declined Dramatically, Including in Years When Poverty Has Increased 7 million Families with Children in Poverty 5 4 Families with Children in Deep Poverty w 2 AFDC**/TANF Families 0 1 1 194 195 196 197 198 199 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 "Temporary Assistance for Needy Families **Aid to Families with Dependent Children Source: CBPP analysis of poverty data from the Current Population Survey and AFDC/TANF caseload data from Health and Human Services and (since 2006) caseload data collected by CBPP from state agencies. Center on Rudent and Policy Priorities chrom

(1) Briefly explain what this chart shows.
(2) What does it suggest about the role of the TANF program today as a safety net program?
(3) How has this changed since the mid-90s?  

7). The chart below illustrates the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) benefit received by different types of families at different levels of income.

(1) Very briefly (in a few words) describe what the EITC is.
(2) Explain David Ellwood’s second conundrum: Security-Work (very briefly – two sentences).
(3) How does the EITC potentially ‘solve’ the Security-Work conundrum?

8). Using the example of a single-mother with two children (the most common form of low-income family), identify the following:

(1) At what approximate level of annual income will she qualify for the maximum EITC benefit?
(2) What is her maximum benefit?
(3) At what approximate level of annual income will her maximum benefit start to decline?
(4) At what approximate level of annual income with she no longer be eligible for any EITC benefit?

9). If you were describing this chart to someone who was not in our class, what are the (3) three most important pieces of information that you would like the person to come away with from this chart?

10). The chart below presents how the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) child care subsidy program for low-income families in California works. Assuming the family is eligible and enrolled in this program and the child is in center-based care, identify the following:

(1) How much does a family pay towards child care if they earn $1000 per month?
(2) At what level of income (approx) does the family start to contribute towards childcare?  
(3) How much do they pay (approx) at this level?
(4) What is the maximum amount of income a family can have and still receive a subsidy?
(5) What is the copay at this maximum level?
(6) Describe the cliff effect for this hypothetical family. In your response, provide dollar amounts of the cliff effect.

Answer 1

1). The retirement benefit of the Social Security program is considered a progressive benefit with a regressive financing scheme.

(1) How is the Social Security benefit progressive?

Social Security benefit is progressive in the sense that these benefits represent a higher proportion of a worker’s previous earnings for workers at lower earnings levels.

(2) How is its financing scheme regressive?

Its financing scheme is regressive because under the scheme of Social Security Program, wealthier people get a better deal than poorer people. For example, benefits for a low earner (with 45 percent of the average wage) retiring at age 65 in 2019 replace about half of his or her prior earnings. But benefits for a high earner (with 160 percent of the average wage) replace about one-quarter of prior earnings, though they are larger in dollar terms than those for the low-wage worker.