Children are among the poorest of Maine's residents. Nearly 1 in 5 children under the age of 18, 19.3%, lived in families below the federal poverty line in the early 1990s. Most of these poor children lived in working families. The working poor are often missing from policy debates, but their numbers are likely to increase with welfare reform…

The impact of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) on working families was analyzed. The analysis established that the EITC is, on balance, a highly effective program that meets its primary objectives well. The following benefits of the EITC were identified: (1) it reduced the poverty rate in 1999 by an estimated 1.5 percentage points; (2) it is…