Recent changes in American public assistance programs have emphasized the role of work. Employer subsidies such as the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) and the Welfare-to-Work Tax Credit (WtW) are designed to encourage employment by reimbursing employers for a portion of wages paid to certain welfare and food stamp recipients, among other groups. a simple dynamic search model of employment subsidies was developed and then test the model’s implications for the
employment outcomes of WOTC- and WtW-subsidized workers. The model predicts that subsidized workers will have higher rates of employment and higher wages than equally productive unsubsidized workers, and it highlights some possible effects of the subsidy on job tenure. predictions was tested using a unique administrative data set from the state of Wisconsin. These data provide information on demographic characteristics, employment histories, and WOTC and WtW participation for all welfare and food stamp recipients in the state for the years 1998 -2001. from those of eligibility.
The employment, wage, and job tenure effects of the WOTC and WtW using propensity score was estimated.
The estimation the effects of the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) and the Welfare to Work Tax Credit (WtW) on employment outcomes of disadvantaged workers. These credits offer
subsidies to firms that hire individuals who may otherwise have difficulty finding jobs, such as certain welfare recipients, disadvantaged youth, and disabled individuals. Past work on previous employer-based credits found weak or even nonexistent employment effects, which resulted in the elimination of these
subsidies. The WOTC has been reauthorized four times since its implementation in 1996, and the WtW three times since its implementation in 1998, yet no study has carefully examined their effectiveness.
An analytical model of the WOTC and WtW were developed that allows workers from the same population to be paid different wages based on their value to the particular firms in which they are
employed. I also incorporate a binding minimum wage, which results in some long-term unemployment.
Finally, wages and employment status to change over time as employers learn about workers’ productivity in their firm. This dynamic element is essential to the model, since predictions about wage trajectories and job tenure cannot be made based on a static model. For example, concerns that
disadvantaged workers will end up in short-term, low-paying jobs cannot be addressed analytically without a model that allows changes in employment status over time. This gradual learning treats job matches as “experience goods” whose value cannot be determined ex ante.
Flinn (2003) introduces a minimum wage and investigates its effects on labor market outcomes and welfare in a search framework. Flinn incorporates the possibility of wage bargaining, and analyzes the effects of the minimum wage under different levels of worker bargaining power. Adding bargaining power to the model allows him to relax Jovanovic’s assumption that workers are always paid their (expected) marginal products; this is an important consideration if firms in certain markets are able to extract some rents from workers and pay wages closer to the reservation wage.
However, Flinn’s mode assumes that there is no uncertainty about productivity, even at the time of hire. In the context of the low wage labor market, in which employers might perceive some risks of hiring inexperienced workers, this assumption is restrictive. I therefore develop a model that maintains the bargaining and minimum wage
aspects of Flinn’s model but incorporates a simple form of uncertainty based on Jovanovic (1979), allowing job matches to be characterized as experience goods. This hybrid model is extended to include wage subsidies for a particular subset of workers.
