A new study by Fredrik Andersson, John Haltiwanger, Mark Kutzbach, Giordano E. Palloni, Henry Pollakowski, and Daniel Weinberg found that young adults who had lived in public or voucher-assisted housing as teenagers had higher earnings and lower rates of incarceration than young adults from unassisted low income households.
The study suggests that housing vouchers and public housing provide low income parents with greater financial resources to devote to their children’s development, which improves adult outcomes later in life. Vouchers may give recipients greater residential choices, as long as they can find housing in the private market. Public housing may give residents greater stability because they don’t have to search for a rental home in the private market.
Every additional year of living in voucher-assisted housing as a teenager was associated with an increase in earnings at the age of 26 for females and males by 4.7% and 2.6%, respectively. Non-Hispanic black females benefitted the most, with a 7.0% increase in young adult earnings for every year of voucher-assisted housing as a teenager. Hispanic females saw an increase in young adult earnings by 4.5% for every year of voucher assistance.
Every additional year in public housing as a teenager was associated with an increase in young adult earnings by 4.9% and 5.1% for females and males, respectively. Non-Hispanic black and Hispanic females saw a 5.5% and 7.1% increase in young adult earnings for every year in public housing.
Vouchers and public housing also reduced the likelihood of incarceration among young adults. Each additional year of living in voucher-assisted or public housing as a teenager between 1997 and 2005 reduced the likelihood of incarceration in 2010 by 0.4 and 0.1 percentage points for females and males, respectively. The authors found similar results for public housing, where an additional year of living in public housing was associated with a reduction in the likelihood of incarceration by 0.5 and 0.2 percentage points for females and males, respectively.
The authors used confidential data from the Census Bureau, HUD data on public and voucher-assisted housing residents, and public Census data to identify households with two or more teenagers who lived in public or voucher-assisted housing between 1997 and 2005, the teenagers’ earnings at the age of 26, and their rates of incarceration.
Childhood Housing and Adult Earnings: A Between-Siblings Analysis of Housing Vouchers and Public Housing is available at: http://www.nber.org/papers/w22721