Budget cuts are common during times of fiscal austerity and often include substantial reductions in welfare spending. In developed economies, the withdrawal of income support for poor families can have wide-ranging consequences in the short run, including increasing poverty and criminal activity as well as worsening health and educational outcomes. However, our understanding of the long-run effects is generally limited to an assessment of those adults who were children when the programs began. Marsh Institute Researcher Jon Denton-Schneider (Economics) received funding from the Economic History Association for the project “Rags to Rags: The Effects of the New Poor Law across Three Generations” which will investigate a centuries-old case study in England and Wales to study short-run, long-run, and multi-generational effects of social welfare programs on the poor.

For full project descriptions, see the Marsh Institute Research Projects web page.