{"id":8242,"date":"2015-08-31T16:39:19","date_gmt":"2015-08-31T16:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/?p=8242"},"modified":"2015-10-13T19:19:30","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T19:19:30","slug":"eitc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/2015\/08\/31\/eitc\/","title":{"rendered":"E-I-T-C, Find Out What It Means to Me"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n Jennifer Sykes, Katrin Kri\u017e, Karthryn Edin, Sarah Hapern-Meekin, <\/span>“Dignity and Dreams: What the Earned Income Tax Credit Means to Low-Income Families,” American Sociological Review<\/em>,<\/a><\/span> 2015<\/span><\/div>\n

\"EITC<\/a><\/p>\n

In American Sociological Review<\/em>, Jennifer Sykes<\/a>, Katrin Kri\u017e<\/a>, Kathryn Edin<\/a>, and Sarah Halpern-Meekin<\/a> argue that for low-income families, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is not seen as a stigmatizing \u201cwelfare\u201d handout akin to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), but a measure that allows a sense of dignity because it is earned.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/u>Based on in-depth interviews with 115 working parents, the authors find that EITC can help families stay afloat financially—or simply splurge a little. Sometimes the credit is used for necessities, such as paying bills. Other times parents put it toward gifts or other child-centered consumption—think cartoon-themed bedroom accessories, new shoes, dinner out, or an overnight trip. This \u201cfun money\u201d helps take the edge off a sense of precarity. And however it’s spent, the arrival of the money is meaningful: as the authors note, \u201cFor most [interviewees], it was by far the largest single check they receive in a given year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The authors argue that because of the positive feelings the credit engenders among recipients, the benefit is bigger than a dollar value. The EITC allows low-income recipients to practice what the authors call \u201cincorporative consumption.\u201d In other words, getting and spending the credit however they see fit affords low-income recipients a sense of citizenship and belonging that typically eludes those who live paycheck-to-paycheck in the contemporary U.S.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jennifer Sykes, Katrin Kri\u017e, Karthryn Edin, Sarah Hapern-Meekin, “Dignity and Dreams: What the Earned Income Tax Credit Means to Low-Income Families,” American Sociological Review, 2015 In American Sociological Review, Jennifer Sykes, Katrin Kri\u017e, Kathryn Edin, and Sarah Halpern-Meekin argue that for low-income families, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is not seen as a stigmatizing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1861,"featured_media":8243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,85],"tags":[131,19397,70,30840,37336,119,19396,151],"class_list":["post-8242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inequality","category-politics","tag-economy","tag-eitc","tag-family","tag-low-income","tag-politics","tag-poverty","tag-tax","tag-welfare"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/files\/2015\/08\/EITC-logo.gif","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8242"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8246,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8242\/revisions\/8246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}