Welfare to work and subjective well‐being: Evidence from a randomized control trial

In: The Canadian journal of economics: the journal of the Canadian Economics Association = Revue canadienne d'économique, Volume 53, Issue 1, p. 83-107

Abstract

AbstractI examine the effect of transitioning from welfare to full‐time employment on a variety of measures of subjective well‐being for a sample of long‐term welfare recipients in British Columbia and New Brunswick who participated in the Self‐Sufficiency Project (SSP). Individuals randomly assigned to the treatment group could receive a generous time‐limited earnings supplement if they found full‐time work. I use random assignment to estimate the local average treatment effect of working full time on well‐being. For the complier subpopulation, I find large, positive effects on subjective well‐being that persist over the longer run for New Brunswick and through roughly three years for British Columbia. Policy changes made during the experiment may explain the provincial differences.