Racial/Ethnic Income Inequality Responses to a Government Maintenance Program in the United States

In this study, the authors investigate the income inequality responses of Blacks, Whites, and Hispanics in the United States to the income maintenance program Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) using cross sections of state-level data. The results show that this program indeed reduces income inequality but the impacts are not uniform across racial/ethnic groups. Specifically, the authors find that Blacks have results that differ from those of the other two groups or those of the United States as a whole. These results are robust when using either the Gini or Theil measure of inequality.racial differences; policy analysis; welfare