Page 24 GAO-24-106056 Economic Downturns
32
Ammar Farooq, Adrianna D. Kugler, Umberto Muratori, “Do Unemployment Insurance Benefits
Improve Match and Employer Quality? Evidence from Recent U.S. Recessions,” Working Paper,
No. 27574 (Cambridge, M.A.: National Bureau of Economic Research, rev. April 2022), 20-21.
33
GAO, Unemployment Insurance: Pandemic Programs Posed Challenges, and DOL Could Better
Address Customer Service and Emergency Planning, GAO-22-104251 (Washington, D.C.: June 7,
2022).
34
Marianne Bitler and Hilary Hoynes, “The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same?
The Safety Net and Poverty in the Great Recession,” Journal of Labor Economics, vol. 34, no. 1, pt.
2 (2016); Jeff Larrimore, Jacob Mortenson, and David Splinter, “Earnings Shocks and Stabilization
during COVID-19,” Journal of Public Economics, vol. 206 (2022). Bruce Meyer and Derek Wu, “The
Poverty Reduction of Social Security and Means-Tested Transfers,” ILR Review, vol. 71, no. 5
(2018). Marianne Bitler, Hilary Hoynes, and Elira Kuka, “Child Poverty, the Great Recession, and
the Social Safety Net in the United States,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, vol. 36,
no. 2 (2017); Bradley L. Hardy, “Income Instability and the Response of the Safety Net,”
Contemporary Economic Policy, vol.35, no.2 (2017).
35
Bitler and Hoynes, “The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same?;” Meyer and Wu,
“The Poverty Reduction of Social Security and Means-Tested Transfers;” Hardy, “Income Instability
and the Response of the Safety Net;” Bitler, Hoynes, and Kuka, “Child Poverty, the Great
Recession, and the Social Safety Net in the United States.”
36
Bitler and Hoynes, “The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same?,” S422.; Meyer
and Wu, “The Poverty Reduction of Social Security and Means-Tested Transfers,” 1136. Bitler and
Hoynes (2016) also found SNAP and UI to be marginally more countercyclical during the Great
Recession than in previous cycles since 1980.
37
Jeehoon Han, Bruce D. Meyer, and James X. Sullivan, “Income and Poverty in the COVID-19
Pandemic,” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Summer (2020): 87.
38
Jesse Rothstein and Robert G. Valletta, “Scraping by: Income and Program Participation After the
Loss of Extended Unemployment Benefits,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, vol. 36,
no. 4 (2017): 880, 882.
39
Larrimore et al., “Earnings Shocks and Stabilization during COVID-19,” 104,602.
40
The study notes that this finding is consistent with the supplemental UI benefits provided by the
CARES Act in 2020. Because these benefits were a fixed weekly amount and not tied to wages
while working, lower-earning beneficiaries were the most likely to replace their earnings. The study
defined earnings as wages and salaries, excluding self-employment.
41
While these studies varied in the set of programs considered as part of the social safety net, they
all included SNAP and UI. Bitler and Hoynes, “The More Things Change, the More They Stay the
Same?;” Hardy, “Income Instability and the Response of the Safety Net;” Bitler, Hoynes, and Kuka,
“Child Poverty, the Great Recession, and the Social Safety Net in the United States.”
42
This study also mentions that despite being effective at reducing poverty, since 1980 the safety
net appears less responsive to instability for the same demographic groups. Hardy, “Income
Instability and the Response of the Safety Net,” 327.
43
Bitler, Hoynes, and Kuka, “Child Poverty, the Great Recession, and the Social Safety Net in the
United States,” 358.
44
According to the study, immigrants are not able to access a large share of the safety net due to
lack of eligibility (for unauthorized immigrants) or because access is more limited. Bitler, Hoynes,
and Kuka. “Child Poverty, the Great Recession, and the Social Safety Net in the United States,”
380.
45
René Chalom, Fatih Karahan, Kurt Mitman, and Benjamin Pugsley, “Liquidity Effects of
Unemployment Insurance Benefit Extensions: Evidence from Consumer Credit Data,” Paper
presented at a meeting of the Society for Economic Dynamics (2019); Joanne W Hsu, David A.
Matsa, and Brian T. Melzer, “Unemployment Insurance as a Housing Market Stabilizer,” American
Economic Review, vol. 108 no. 1 (2018).
46
According to the study, this finding implies that as long as home prices maintain their values,
mortgage holders receiving UI benefits may use their benefits to pay down housing debts. There
may be less incentive to pay down mortgage debt in a time when house prices are depressed.