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Two questions basic to welfare policy are examined: (1) whether the amount of poverty-related transfers is sufficient to fill the poverty gap; & (2) which families actually get benefits & how much of their income deficit is filled by those benefits. Transfers are seen to be sufficient. The post-Social Security poverty gap is $74 billion, while poverty-related programs total $198 billion. Further, 86% of current income-conditioned benefits go to the pretransfer poor & 89% of those are used to alleviate poverty (fill the poverty gap). Thus, if a substantial fraction of total federal & state expenditures on poverty-related programs could be targeted more toward the poor, the poverty gap would be eliminated. The current programs, however, would have to be changed substantially to achieve the necessary retargeting. 3 Tables, 1 Appendix. HA

The Section 8 housing program is the largest U. S. housing assistance program. This article presents the first systematic analysis of the benefits participating households receive and compares those benefits with federal government costs. Section 8 New Construction projects provide acceptable housing at an affordable price to those low-income households fortunate enough to be accepted by the developers. However, about 20% of the total project rents goes to program-related costs rather than to tenant benefits. A major advantage of the Section 8 Existing Housingprogram is that tenant benefits are provided without excessive rent increases. But, most units in that program do not meet Section 8 Acceptability Criteria. A shift in emphasis from the New Construction to the Existing Housing program can save the government significant amounts of money yet maintain the number of households assisted.

Front Cover; The Economics of Housing Vouchers; Copyright Page; Dedication; Table of Contents; Preface; Acknowledgments; Chapter 1. Introduction; THE EVOLUTION OF HOUSING PROGRAMS; THE U.S. HOUSING PROBLEM; THE HOUSING ALLOWANCE DEMAND EXPERIMENT; Chapter 2. The Demand for Rental Housing; A MICROECONOMIC MODEL OF HOUSING DEMAND; EVIDENCE FROM RECENT EMPIRICALESTIMATES OF HOUSING DEMAND; EXPENDITURE CHANGES FOR PERCENTOF RENT HOUSEHOLDS; ECONOMETRIC ESTIMATES OF DEMAND PARAMETERS; THE EFFECT OF DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES; DYNAMIC MODELS OF HOUSING DEMAND; CONCLUSION

This presentation summarizes parts of http://hdl.handle.net/1813/52650.2, "Effects of a Government-Academic Partnership: Has the NSF-Census Bureau Research Network Helped Improve the U.S. Statistical System?", by Weinberg, Daniel; Abowd, John M.; Belli, Robert F.; Cressie, Noel; Folch, David C.; Holan, Scott H.; Levenstein, Margaret C.; Olson, Kristen M.; Reiter, Jerome P.; Shapiro, Matthew D.; Smyth, Jolene; Soh, Leen-Kiat; Spencer, Bruce; Spielman, Seth E.; Vilhuber, Lars; Wikle, Christopher ; Presentation made by Lars Vilhuber, PI of the NSF-Census Research Network (NCRN) Coordinating Office on behalf of the network at the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) 2018 in a session presenting the award winners from 2017. https://ww2.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2018/onlineprogram/ActivityDetails.cfm?SessionID=215028 ; NSF-1129475 to Northwestern University; NSF-1130706 to Carnegie Mellon University; NSF-1131500 to University of Michigan-Ann Arbor; NSF-1131848 to Cornell University; NSF-1131897 to Duke University and National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS); NSF-1132008 to University of Colorado-Boulder; NSF-1132015 to University of Nebraska-Lincoln; NSF-1132031 to University of Missouri; and NSF-1507241 for the Coordinating Office (Cornell, Duke, and NISS).

Changing the Way the United States Measures Income and Poverty: A Progress Report