Title of Document: EFFECTS OF SOCIAL POLICY REFORMS AND THE ECONOMY ON WELFARE PARTICIPATION AND EMPLOYMENT AMONG SINGLE MOTHERS

Child care subsidies and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) are vital government tools for increasing employment and reducing poverty among low-income families. This dissertation, therefore, explores many features of these policies, including their evolution, correlates of participation, and impacts on employment. Chapter 1 provides an overview of child care subsidies and the EITC, focusing on recent policy developments, labor supply incentives, and a critical review of the empirical employment literature. Chapter 2 explores why, despite substantial growth in funding, participation in child care subsidy programs remains comparatively low. Results suggest that although 30 percent of households with children are eligible for child care subsidies, take-up is 14 percent. The low take-up rate is driven by several factors: eligible non-recipients differ from recipients in ways that make subsidies unnecessary or undesirable; the practice by states to trade-off generosity in eligibility for additional generosity in benefits; and the practice by states to ration benefits according to specific household characteristics. Chapter 3 examines the effects of child care costs and net-of-taxes wages on th