Responding to the New Geography of Poverty: Metropolitan Trends in the Earned Income Tax Credit

The Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings recently released a report that compared the change in geographic distribution of the low-income population to trends of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) recipients’ location. The data used to evaluate the change in geographic distribution was measured between 1999 and 2007 in the nation’s 10 largest metropolitan areas. The researchers uncovered that the distribution of low-income populations mirrored the distribution of EITC recipients. This similarity in distribution shows that EITC has operated as an effective tool to evade poverty. EITC has effectively adapted to the conditions of recession, and is an important resource for low-income populations regardless of their location.