Understanding Take-Up Of The Earned Income Tax Credit Among Californians With Low Income

Poverty is a prevalent and persistent risk factor for health inequities in the US.¹ The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is the nation’s largest poverty alleviation program for families with children, disbursing more than $60 billion annually to more than twenty-five million recipients.² With an average benefit of nearly $2,500 per family and a maximum exceeding $6,000, the EITC raises millions of families out of poverty each year.³ The EITC, created in 1975, has generally garnered bipartisan support,⁴ especially because it increases labor-market participation, particularly for single mothers with low incomes.⁵ Moreover, EITC receipt is associated with improvements in birth outcomes, child development, mental health, and smoking rates, with effects often larger for marginalized subgroups such as Black women and people with lower educational attainment.^6–8 For these reasons, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers the EITC one of fourteen key evidence-based cost-effective interventions that have been shown to improve health within just five years.⁹

During the past three decades, most states have implemented their own supplemental EITC programs, with benefit sizes ranging from a few percent of the federal credit to more than $3,000 in California for the CalEITC.¹⁰ The presence of a state EITC has been associated with reductions in low birthweight of between 4 percent and 11 percent,¹¹ improving the chances of infant survival and childhood health.¹²

Despite these potential health benefits of EITC take-up, only about 80 percent of eligible families actually received EITC benefits in 2018. Among states, take-up rates ranged from 73.2 percent in Oregon to 82.7 percent in South Dakota. California’s take-up rate was among the lowest, at 73.4 percent,³ leaving $2 billion in unclaimed federal benefits in California alone.¹³ Take-up of supplemental state EITCs may be lower still. Even for the generous CalEITC, take-up was estimated at only 53 percent in 2017.¹⁴

There is limited research on the reasons for low take-up. Prior work has primarily relied on administrative data (for example, tax records) to suggest several possible explanations, including lack of awareness of the benefit; confusion around eligibility criteria, especially for nontraditional families; and the administrative burdens of the tax filing process, particularly for people whose incomes are low enough that they are not required to file taxes.^14,15

A recent randomized trial tested behavioral nudges among one million Californians to increase awareness of the EITC, including text messages and letters of varying design and content, delivered in several languages. This study found that none of the interventions increased take-up,¹⁶ suggesting that lack of awareness is not the only limiting factor. Although prior studies have elicited firsthand experiences of EITC-eligible people to understand their use of the benefit,¹⁷ no studies to our knowledge have used study designs grounded in the lived experiences of families to explain low EITC take-up.

Improving understanding of the reasons for low EITC take-up is crucial, as it could inform interventions and policies that could enhance poverty alleviation and improve health equity. We aim to fill this critical research gap by describing findings from the Assessing California Communities’ Experiences with Safety Net Supports (ACCESS) Study, which collected primary data from EITC-eligible California families on their experiences with applying for the EITC and potential barriers to take-up. This study was among the first to survey EITC-eligible families directly to elucidate drivers of low take-up of the EITC among eligible people at risk for poor health outcomes because of economic disadvantage.

Study Data And Methods

Study Sample

We conducted a cross-sectional study, interviewing caregivers of young children in California between August 2020 and May 2021 with the intention of recruiting an EITC-eligible sample. Inclusion criteria were having at least one dependent ages 0–8, income within eligibility limits for the EITC based on marital status and number of dependents, and immigration and marital status consistent with eligibility rules for the EITC¹⁸ (see the online appendix, EITC Eligibility Criteria section, for details).¹⁹ We recruited our sample in partnership with community-based organizations, including safety-net programs, social services agencies, and tax preparation services. These partners recruited participants via email and text messages to their clients, newsletters, office bulletin boards, and social media pages. Participants themselves were also asked to share study information with friends and family members. All recruitment materials included a link to a web-based eligibility screening questionnaire and consent form.

Participants who responded to the screening questionnaire ($n=7,796$) and were deemed eligible to participate ($n=1,593$) were contacted by the study team via text message or telephone to schedule an interviewer-administered survey (see supplemental exhibit 1).¹⁹ A total of 502 participants were interviewed, after we lost participants to several factors (could not reach [$n=751$], no-show [$n=201$], not eligible [$n=78$], declined to participate [$n=54$], and other [$n=7$]). The surveys were conducted using video conferencing software or by telephone and lasted 1.5 hours, on average.

Based on more detailed responses to the full survey, 411 participants were identified as EITC eligible and 316 as CalEITC eligible. Some participants appeared eligible in the initial screening but were later excluded as a result of having age-ineligible children ($n=36$), having no earned income ($n=26$), filing taxes with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number ($n=25$), or reporting a filing status of married filing separately ($n=1$). Survey respondents who had their tax return paperwork at the interview and were confirmed to have received the EITC ($n=326$) and CalEITC ($n=197$) were included in additional analyses exploring characteristics associated with EITC and CalEITC take-up. See supplemental exhibit 1 for additional details.¹⁹

Survey Instrument

Development of the survey instrument was informed by a literature review, input from the study’s Community Advisory Board, and other expert review. The survey instrument included questions regarding sociodemographic characteristics, household composition, safety-net program participation, and tax information. Previously validated items were used to capture critical constructs when possible. Sociodemographic questions, including gender, age, race and ethnicity, income, employment, educational attainment, marital status, nativity (that is, foreign-born status), and language came from the 2019 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), conducted by the CDC. Race and ethnicity categories were Latinx, non-Hispanic Black, non-Hispanic White, and non-Hispanic other; the latter group was created to avoid small cell sizes and unstable estimates and included those with multiple racial and ethnic backgrounds. Household composition questions, including household size and ages of family members, were based on the NHIS and another CDC survey, the 2019 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Several EITC questions were based on the 2020 Consumer Expenditure Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Questions assessing participation in eight safety-net or charitable programs before the COVID-19 pandemic were based on the Impact and Experience of COVID-19 section of RAND’s American Life Panel for 2020. The study team also developed questions specifically to capture tax-filing method and EITC knowledge, awareness, and other potential barriers to take-up that have been proposed in prior studies (for example, costs and perceived difficulty of tax filing).

To verify EITC and CalEITC eligibility and receipt among people who filed taxes, we asked participants to share their tax filing status, number of dependents claimed, adjusted gross income, and EITC refund amount from their 2019 tax returns. To protect privacy, participants were asked to have their tax return paperwork with them during the interview, and interviewers guided participants on which box numbers on the tax return to read aloud. Among those who did not file taxes, EITC and CalEITC eligibility was imputed on the basis of self-reported marital status, number of children, and annual family income.

Procedure

The study team trained interviewers on principles of quantitative data collection and how to handle sensitive topics such as finances, family matters, discrimination, and mental health using standard techniques. When possible, interviewers were racially and ethnically concordant with participants. Surveys were conducted in English and Spanish. Both the screening questionnaire and the survey were administered and stored on Qualtrics XM.

To assess data quality, one member of the study team evaluated fifty survey recordings (about 10 percent of the total) throughout the study period. We designed a rubric assessing interview and survey delivery, Qualtrics data input, and protocol compliance. Each rubric criterion was given a score (1, does not meet expectations; 2, approaches expectations; and 3, meets expectations). Forty-eight surveys evaluated were conducted in English and two in Spanish. For each rubric criterion, the average score was above 2.8.

Data Analysis

All variables used for analyses were missing less than 1 percent of observations, so we used complete case analysis. We first tabulated sample characteristics in the EITC-eligible sample both overall and then separately for those who did and did not file taxes. For those who filed taxes and had their tax return paperwork at the interview, we tabulated sample characteristics separately for EITC recipients and nonrecipients. Among this group we determined whether people were also eligible for the CalEITC, and we calculated characteristics for this subsample with available tax return paperwork (supplemental exhibit 2).¹⁹ Next we tabulated questions about EITC and CalEITC knowledge, barriers to filing taxes, and take-up of the EITC and CalEITC, stratified by tax filing status, EITC receipt, and CalEITC receipt.

We then examined variables associated with three binary outcome variables: taxes filed, EITC benefits received by eligible tax filers (confirmed via tax return), and CalEITC benefits received by eligible tax filers (confirmed via tax return). We first conducted bivariate analyses, examining associations between these three variables and a range of sociodemographic characteristics, prior knowledge of the EITC and CalEITC, participation in other safety-net programs, and income (from tax paperwork, when available, or by self-report). We then conducted logistic regressions adjusted for the covariates listed above.

Given concerns about collinearity between primary language, nativity, and race and ethnicity, the latter variable was collapsed to Black versus non-Black in final models. Similarly, we excluded most safety-net programs from multivariable models because of concerns about collinearity. Only Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) participation was included in multivariable models because it was statistically significant in bivariate analyses.

We did not use self-reported benefit receipt to impute EITC and CalEITC receipt for survey respondents who did not have their tax return paperwork during the interview ($n=85$). This is because, among those for whom we verified EITC receipt using tax returns, only 53 percent self-reported that they had received the EITC, so this imputation would have introduced an unacceptable level of measurement error.

Sensitivity Analysis

We conducted a sensitivity analysis that replaced continuous income with a binary variable representing whether the participant’s household income fell below the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax-filing threshold ($12,200 for single filers or $24,400 for married filing jointly).²¹

Limitations

This study had limitations. Because of the convenience sampling technique, the sample was not representative of the broader EITC-eligible population in California or nationally. For example, compared with the EITC-eligible population in California in tax year 2014, our sample was more likely to be Black (22.9 percent versus 6.8 percent), less likely to be White (11.4 percent versus 24.2 percent), and more likely to have a college education or more (23.4 percent versus 14.0 percent; see supplemental exhibit 3),¹⁹ although it was similar with respect to marital status (27.7 percent versus 26.4 percent married).²²

The families included in our sample were primarily recruited from other social services. This recruitment strategy underrepresented those with no such connection, who are arguably most at risk of not receiving benefits for which they are eligible. Furthermore, our sample only included residents of California, limiting generalizability.

In some analyses, we also excluded people who filed taxes but did not have their tax forms, because we could not verify EITC receipt. These people may differ in important ways from those who did have their tax forms. Also, self-reporting of some covariates such as safety-net participation may have resulted in measurement error and reporting biases, although we did capture data from participants’ tax forms to ensure accurate information about EITC receipt.

The small size of our sample precluded subgroup analyses by key characteristics such as race and ethnicity, region, or language.

Finally, many families were lost to follow-up between the screening questionnaire and study enrollment. The majority of this loss was due to not being able to reach participants or participants not fully completing the screener. The challenging circumstances for families with young children during the COVID-19 pandemic may have contributed to these losses and may have biased our results.

Study Results

Sample Characteristics

The majority of the sample (94.2 percent) identified as women (exhibit 1). About 53 percent identified as Latinx, 23 percent as Black, 11 percent as White, and 12 percent as another race or ethnicity. Median income was $18,100 (interquartile range: 10,000–30,000), and the median number of dependents was 2 (IQR: 1–3). About 27 percent of the sample reported that they were not working for most of 2019, although they or their family members did earn enough income to make them eligible for the EITC. About 83 percent reported that English was the primary language spoken in their home.

Filing Taxes And Receiving The EITC

Approximately 91 percent of the sample reported filing taxes in 2019 (exhibit 1). Of the 326 EITC-eligible people in the sample who filed taxes and had their tax return paperwork at the interview, 84 percent had received the EITC. Of the 197 people who filed taxes, had their tax return paperwork, and were eligible for the CalEITC, 83 percent had received the CalEITC (supplemental exhibit 4).¹⁹

About 16 percent of the overall sample did not receive the EITC despite being eligible and filing taxes (exhibit 1). In comparison with those who did receive the EITC, this group had similar proportions of people who were women, working full or part time, and legally married and had the same median number of dependents in the household. The sample differed, however, in likelihood of being Latinx (78.4 percent versus 50.9 percent in the group receiving EITC; exhibit 1) and of being foreign born (31.4 percent versus 23.6 percent) and younger (31 percent versus 13 percent were ages 18–24) (supplemental exhibit 3).¹⁹

About 9 percent of the overall sample did not file taxes even though they likely would have been eligible for the EITC if they had filed (exhibit 1). These people were less likely to have worked full or part time compared with the group that was eligible but did file, and they were otherwise similar with respect to gender, race and ethnicity, marital status, age, and number of dependents in household.

EITC Awareness

About two-thirds of those who did not file taxes had heard of the EITC, yet 59 percent of nonfilers perceived themselves to be eligible (exhibit 2 and supplemental exhibit 5).¹⁹ Of those who filed taxes and received the EITC, about 73 percent perceived themselves to be eligible. CalEITC awareness was much lower, with only 18 percent of nonfilers and 30 percent of filers having heard of the program and with only about 34 percent of those who had actually received it reporting awareness (exhibit 2).

The most common ways in which participants who reported awareness of the EITC and CalEITC had learned about the programs was from tax return paperwork or from a tax preparation organization or tax preparer. About 43 percent of those who filed taxes and did not receive the EITC reported hearing about the program from the IRS or tax return paperwork, and approximately 29 percent reported hearing about the program from a tax preparation organization or tax preparer. Among those who filed taxes and did receive the EITC, a similar 40 percent had heard of the EITC from the IRS or tax return paperwork, and about one-third had heard of it from a tax preparation organization or tax preparer (exhibit 2 and supplemental exhibit 5).¹⁹ These rates were similar for how people reported learning that they were eligible for the EITC.

Although most participants were likely eligible for free tax services, 60 percent reported paying for tax preparation services. Only about 13 percent of tax filers found filing to be difficult or very difficult (supplemental exhibit 5).¹⁹

Multivariable Models

Participants who had higher family income or worked full or part time were more likely to file taxes in unadjusted analyses, and participants who had received TANF were less likely to have filed taxes (exhibit 3). There were no significant differences when comparing filers and nonfilers in bivariate analyses of gender, race and ethnicity, marital status, age, and household size (exhibit 3 and supplemental exhibit 6).¹⁹ In analyses adjusted for a wide range of covariates, participants who had higher family income or worked full or part time were more likely to have filed taxes, and TANF recipients were less likely to have filed taxes.

In unadjusted analyses, higher receipt of the EITC among tax filers was associated with race and ethnicity, speaking English as a primary language, and having heard of the EITC. In adjusted analyses, a higher likelihood of receiving the EITC was associated with being older, speaking English as a primary language, and having heard of the EITC (exhibit 3). For the CalEITC, speaking English as a primary language was the key variable associated with receiving the tax credit.

Sensitivity Analysis

In a sensitivity analysis using a binary income variable (below and above the IRS filing threshold), the same covariates remained significant predictors of EITC and CalEITC receipt (supplemental exhibit 7).¹⁹

Discussion

The EITC is the largest poverty alleviation program in the US for families with children, with a demonstrated ability to improve child and adult health and the potential to address health equity. Yet millions of eligible families do not take up the benefit. Furthermore, even among families who do receive the EITC, many are not aware of the program; people know that they get a tax refund but might not be not aware of its source. The ACCESS Study is among the first to provide evidence to understand barriers to and demographic variables associated with EITC take-up, using survey data and tax forms collected from eligible California families with low incomes.

This study had several strengths, including that it was among the first to survey EITC-eligible families directly, going beyond administrative data to obtain a richer picture of possible determinants of EITC take-up. It also directly verified EITC receipt from tax forms, avoiding errors in self-reported receipt of benefits. Additional strengths included the wide range of questions asked by interviewers who conducted the interviews in English or Spanish.

Our estimates for EITC take-up in tax year 2019 are higher than reported estimates for all Californians in administrative data—that is, 73 percent for the federal EITC in 2018²⁰ and 53 percent for the CalEITC in 2017.¹³ This finding may reflect either increased outreach and awareness in 2019 or the fact that our sample was recruited primarily from social service agencies and other safety-net programs and included parents, who typically have higher take-up than childless adults.¹³ These discrepancies could also be explained by our exclusion of tax filers who did not have their returns available for the interview.

One major reason for not receiving EITC benefits among our sample was failure to file taxes, even though nonfilers (9 percent of the sample) had higher awareness of the EITC and self-perceived eligibility than those who filed taxes and failed to claim the benefit. This finding may be in part explained by results from bivariate analyses, suggesting that families with low incomes, people working part time, and those receiving TANF were less likely to file taxes, possibly because their incomes fell below the IRS’s threshold for required filing. Of note, the latter results were not robust to multivariable analyses, although this may be because of the small sample and collinearity of these variables. Because many in our sample paid for tax preparation services even though they qualified for free services, this may suggest that free services were not readily accessible in the regions where the families in our sample resided.

Enhanced outreach to this population is needed to inform people about their eligibility and to support tax filing.

In addition, these results highlight that enhanced outreach to this population is needed to inform people about their eligibility and to support tax filing. One prior field experiment found that official letters from the IRS about free tax preparation increased tax filing generally, with a large share of the new filers claiming the EITC.²³ Similarly, the IRS sends notices to families who appear to be eligible for the EITC and did not claim it when they filed,²⁴ with prior studies finding that this increases take-up.²⁵ Although federal EITC benefits tend to be smaller for those with the lowest incomes, CalEITC benefits are largest for this group, highlighting the importance of targeted messaging to ensure that the financial benefits of tax filing are well understood.

It is possible that the higher-than-expected rates of CalEITC receipt observed in our sample were a result of recent intensive outreach efforts from a committed group of advocates and organizations in California, including the Golden State Opportunity Project (a member of our Community Advisory Board). It is also possible that this elevated take-up rate was due to many of our study participants having lower incomes that led to higher CalEITC benefits, and to improved state support to better integrate the CalEITC into tax-filing paperwork.

Among those who did file taxes, lower likelihood of EITC receipt was associated with lack of awareness and younger age.

Among those who did file taxes, lower likelihood of EITC receipt was associated with lack of awareness and younger age. Younger people are perhaps the least likely to have had experience with filing taxes. The IRS instructions for the EITC are more than forty pages long compared with thirteen pages for the Alternative Minimum Tax for high-income earners.^26,27 Young filers may also have been confused by the complex eligibility requirements for those younger than age twenty-five. In particular, people younger than age twenty-five without children are ineligible, and numerous tax support websites do not clearly state that those younger than age twenty-five with children are eligible; notably, everyone in our sample had young children. This suggests the need to simplify eligibility requirements and to support newer filers who may be eligible.

Other studies that focused on people who erroneously receive the EITC when they are not eligible have found that this is most often due to errors and confusion about filing rather than intentional fraud, again highlighting the confusing nature of the EITC claiming process.^28,29 Auditing rates are higher for filers with lower incomes, despite the fact that the dollar value of incorrect claims for this group is dwarfed by the value of unpaid taxes among higher-income earners, so fear of being audited may lead some people to avoid claiming the EITC.³⁰ The smaller sample of CalEITC-eligible participants may explain why some variables that were statistically significant in the EITC analyses (for example, Latinx ethnicity) were not significant in this subgroup. The finding for younger age was also not statistically significant for the CalEITC, although effect estimates were similar in size and direction; this analysis may have been underpowered.

For both the EITC and CalEITC, lower likelihood of receipt was also associated with not speaking English as a primary language. This suggests that more resources are needed to support tax filing from this group, including IRS websites and forms in other languages and additional language support from tax preparers and community organizations. Our study was limited to English and Spanish speakers—both languages in which tax forms are available. The challenges may be even greater for speakers of languages in which forms are unavailable.

Critically, we also found that many people did not know about the EITC, including those who actually received it. Our descriptive analyses suggested that EITC receipt among families who were not aware of the program depended on how the family filed taxes. Ensuring that beneficiaries understand the role of the EITC as a source of their refund is important in facilitating a healthy public debate about the role of government in providing a social safety net. If beneficiaries do not know that it is a US or state policy that provides the funds they receive, they will lack the opportunity to vote for or otherwise support such policies if desired. Similarly, if the receipt of benefits is detached from the policy providing them, it is not possible for beneficiaries to participate in the process of improving the policy to further enhance their well-being.

Although filing with a free tax preparer specializing in filers with low incomes may help eligible families receive EITC benefits, self-filing or using software that does not make it easy to claim the EITC may reduce their chances of receipt. More generally, designing programs from a user’s perspective, rather than from a technocratic policy perspective, may improve take-up and benefit the population that the program is designed to support. Additional work is needed by policy makers to improve program design and facilitate benefit receipt among eligible families, perhaps in partnership with community organizations or user-centric design experts such as Code for America.³¹ For example, the vast majority of study participants participated in other safety-net programs, none of which were predictive of increased EITC receipt; this suggests a need for more coordination across programs. Creating a unified simple application to determine eligibility for all safety-net programs would streamline the process and could increase program awareness and take-up.

New EITC policy approaches are necessary, given that the populations most critical to reach may be the least likely to receive benefits.

New EITC policy approaches are necessary, given that the populations most critical to reach may be the least likely to receive benefits. In particular, modifications facilitating take-up are needed to make receipt of the EITC a more straightforward default for eligible families. Until a default system can be achieved, recommendations to design the program from a user’s perspective include simplifying EITC eligibility requirements and rules; better connecting social safety-net programs to ensure that participants are aware of and can access all benefits for which they are eligible; improving EITC messaging and communications to increase awareness and take-up; ensuring that the IRS website and services are simplified and available in multiple languages; and expanding the availability of multilingual, no-cost-to-filers tax filing support for EITC-eligible individuals and families.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Rita Hamad and Wendi Gosliner are co–first authors. This research was supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as part of its Equity-Focused Policy Research Initiative: Building Evidence on Income Supports for Low-Income Families with Young Children. The authors thank the following additional organizations for funding this research: the Tipping Point Foundation and the UC Berkeley Population Center. The authors also thank the following research assistants who contributed to data collection: Dalila Alvarado, Melissa Cortez, Simrit Dhillon, Dalia Elkhalifa, Sofia Finestone, Geremy Lowe, Mina Mahdi, Sasha Narain, Daniel Salas, Allyson Velez, and Kelly Woods. The authors are grateful to the study participants and their families for contributing to the research. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon this work, for commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited. See https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

NOTES

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