The long-term effects of housing assistance on work and welfare

This paper examines the long-term effect of project-based housing assistance-public housing and private assisted housing-on work, earnings, and welfare receipt. We use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics-Assisted Housing Database to identify women ever living in project-based assisted housing and to create comparison groups using propensity scores. Analyses show no evidence that moving into this type of assisted housing is associated with sustained reductions in employment rates, work hours, or earnings. Although welfare rates decline, they remain higher for assisted housing recipients compared with nonrecipients. Over-all, these findings align with those of recent experimental and nonexperimental studies that include other forms of housing assistance and cover different time periods.