Nber Working Paper Series the Long Term Impact of Cash Transfers to Poor Families

We estimate the long-run impact of cash transfers to poor families on children’s longevity, educational attainment, nutritional status, and income in adulthood. To do so, we collected individual-level administrative records of applicants to the Mothers’ Pension program—the first government-sponsored welfare program in the US (1911-1935) —and matched them to census, WWII and death records. Male children of accepted applicants lived one year longer than those of rejected mothers. Male children of accepted mothers received one-third more years of schooling, were less likely to be underweight, and had higher income in adulthood than children of rejected mothers. Anna Aizer Brown University Department of Economics 64 Waterman Street Providence, RI 02912 and NBER [email protected] Shari Eli University of Toronto Department of Economics Toronto, ON M5S 3G7 [email protected] Joseph Ferrie Department of Economics Northwestern University Evanston, IL 60208-2600 and NBER [email protected] Adriana Lleras-Muney Department of Economics 9373 Bunche Hall UCLA Los Angeles, CA 90095 and NBER [email protected] An online appendix is available at: http://www.nber.org/data-appendix/w20093