Helping Working Families: The Earned Income Tax Credit Saul D. Hoffman and Laurence S. Seidman First Chapter | Table of Contents 245 pp. 2002 $40.00 cloth 978-0-88099-254-1 $18.00 paper 978-0-88099-253-4 A "Noteworthy Book in Industrial Relations and Labor Economics," 2002, Industrial Relations Section – Princeton University The authors offer a thorough assessment of the EITC in which they analyze, evaluate, summarize, and critique the state of the program. They find that, overall, the EITC works well, and that it has earned its political popularity. Yet they also uncover several problem areas that they address with specific recommendations based on their analysis. "This book comprises a solid, clearly written piece of applied economic analysis. There are numerous helpful figures that show the EITC schedules and marginal tax rates graphically. The book covers just about every topic one could think of related to the EITC. It strikes an unusally sunny tone for an economics monograph in that the EITC is a policy that everyone likes, given that it actually helps the poor (albeit the ones that are viewed politically as being more deserving) and has relatively low efficiency costs (particularly when compared to other anti-poverty programs that have potentially more severe work disincentives or labour demand reduction effects). Thus, the book should be mandatory reading for all persons who think of economics only in its usual dismal terms of dashing cold water on proposed economic reforms!" –Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations |