Cash and In-Kind Programs in `other_ben`

[andersonfrailey]

Our new intern, @KPinkelman, did some research into which of the programs in cps_data/benefitprograms.csv offered cash benefits and which offered in-kind benefits. Here is a table of his results:

Program	Table	Row	2014_cost	In-Kind or Cash
Unemployment Assistance	11.3	16	43504
Children's health insurance	11.3	20	9317	In-Kind
Indian health	11.3	22	4510	In-Kind
Health resources and services	11.3	24	7604	In-Kind
Substance abuse and mental health services	11.3	25	3193	In-Kind
Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation	11.3	27	997	In-Kind
Refundable Premium Tax Credit and Cost Sharing Reductions	11.3	28	13068	Cash
Other	11.3	30	12834
Student assistance--Department of Education and other	11.3	34	56337	In-Kind
Housing assistance	11.3	36	46600	In-Kind
Child nutrition and special milk programs	11.3	39	19490	In-Kind
Supplemental feeding programs (WIC and CSFP)	11.3	40	6266	Both
Commodity donations and other	11.3	41	823	In-Kind
Family support payments to States and TANF	11.3	45	20378	Cash
Low income home energy assistance	11.3	46	3537	In-Kind
Payments to States for daycare assistance	11.3	48	5064	In-Kind
Payments to States--Foster Care/Adoption Assist.	11.3	50	6868	Cash
Other public assistance	11.3	53	1071
Coal miners and black lung benefits	11.3	56	426	Both
Aging services programs	11.3	58	1462	Both
Energy employees compensation fund	11.3	59	1052	Cash
September 11th victim compensation	11.3	60	49	Cash
Refugee assistance and other	11.3	61	4403	Both
351 Farm income stabilization	3.2	42	20012	Cash
352 Agricultural research and services	3.2	43	4374	In-Kind
451 Community development	3.2	62	7896	In-Kind
452 Area and regional development	3.2	63	3027	In-Kind
453 Disaster relief and insurance	3.2	64	9747	Both
506 Social services	3.2	72	17299	Both

And the spreadsheet file for those interested: program_types.xlsx

I told him to leave out Unemployment Assistance because we do not count it in the ultimate calculation of other_ben.

A couple of questions remain for our work:

1. How to classify the generic "Other" and "Other Public Assistance" programs
2. How to count programs that are both in-kind and cash programs

cc. @martinholmer

[martinholmer]

@Kpinkelman, you can tabulate a high and low fraction of in-kind benefits in other benefits by doing this:

1. High fraction is computed interpreting Both and <blank> as In-Kind, and

2. Low fraction is computed interpreting Both and <blank> as Cash.

In both cases be sure to omit unemployment benefits.

Can you post the results of those tabulations in this issue? Thanks.

@andersonfrailey

[Kpinkelman]

@martinholmer , I’m a bit confused as to what you mean by this – My understanding of what you’re asking:

• Calculate two values (High fraction and Low fraction) for “other” programs currently left blank (“Other” and “Other public assistance”)

In researching which of these programs offered cash vs in-kind benefits, I looked into how they listed their benefits online. Archives containing information about outlays didn’t detail where the money itself went (either directly to individuals or paying for services).

To calculate High fraction and Low fraction, where should I draw these numbers from?

[martinholmer]

@martinholmer said:

you can tabulate a high and low fraction of in-kind benefits in other benefits by doing this:

High fraction is computed interpreting Both and as In-Kind, and

Low fraction is computed interpreting Both and as Cash.

In both cases be sure to omit unemployment benefits.

Sorry if this wasn't clear. All I need to know is the range of value of the in-kind fraction for other_benefits. If you had classified each one as either In-Kind or Cash it would be simple to add up the dollars amounts of all the benefits (other than unemployment compensation) that are labeled In-Kind and divide it by the total of all benefits (again omitting unemployment compensation). Does that make sense?

But above is not the case. You have two categories that are blank and several others that are labeled Both. All I'm asking is that you tabulate two in-kind fraction estimates. The first (high) estimate assumes that all the benefits that are blank or Both are assumed to be In-Kind. The second (low) estimate assumes that all the benefits that are blank or Both are assumed to be Cash. Does that make sense?

[martinholmer]

@Kpinkelman , Is this explanation more clear?

[martinholmer]

@Kpinkelman asked:

To calculate High fraction and Low fraction, where should I draw these numbers from?

From the table shown in the first comment in this issue. Didn't you create that table?

[Kpinkelman]

@martinholmer, That makes more sense to me. Results below:

Type	Estimate
Low Fraction (In-Kind/Total)	.52163293
High Fraction (In-Kind/Total)	.76352877

[martinholmer]

@Kpinkelman, Thanks so much for the range tabulation here.

If your research can narrow the range that would be great.

@andersonfrailey

[MaxGhenis]

@Kpinkelman a couple questions:

1. Do you have the source(s) for this table handy?

2. Is Family support payments to States and TANF (currently classified as cash) only the cash component of TANF? As of 2014, TANF was ~25% cash, plus another ~10% tax credits (per 538), the rest being in-kind. With the $20.4B cost and 2014 TANF budget of $17.4B I'm guessing it may include all of TANF, though I'm not familiar with the family support payments.

3. Is there a rough list of the types of programs included in the two "Other" rows?

[Kpinkelman]

@MaxGhenis sorry for the delayed response:

1. The numbers in the table had already been filled out when I received it, but are from budget docs released by the Obama administration (namely, 3.2 and 11.3 on https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/omb/budget/Historicals). Unfortunately they don't contain information about how the benefits are administered (in-kind or cash), so that information was mostly gleaned from reading up on descriptions of the programs which likely explains 2.

2. You're likely right here - I'm working on a new version of this table and I'll make sure to change that and double check if any similar mistakes were made with other programs.

3. There isn't currently, but I can look into that and compile a list.

[Kpinkelman]

Updated Table:

Program	Table	Row	2014_cost	In-Kind or Cash
Unemployment Assistance	11.3	16	43504
Children's health insurance	11.3	20	9317	In-Kind
Indian health	11.3	22	4510	In-Kind
Health resources and services	11.3	24	7604	In-Kind
Substance abuse and mental health services	11.3	25	3193	In-Kind
Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation	11.3	27	997	In-Kind
Refundable Premium Tax Credit and Cost Sharing Reductions	11.3	28	13068	Cash
Other - Medical	11.3	30	12834
Student assistance--Department of Education and other	11.3	34	56337	In-Kind
Housing assistance	11.3	36	46600	In-Kind
Child nutrition and special milk programs	11.3	39	19490	In-Kind
Supplemental feeding programs (WIC and CSFP)	11.3	40	6266	Both
Commodity donations and other	11.3	41	823	In-Kind
Family support payments to States and TANF	11.3	45	20378	Both
Low income home energy assistance	11.3	46	3537	In-Kind
Payments to States for daycare assistance	11.3	48	5064	In-Kind
Payments to States--Foster Care/Adoption Assist.	11.3	50	6868	Cash
Other public assistance	11.3	53	1071
Coal miners and black lung benefits	11.3	56	426	Both
Aging services programs	11.3	58	1462	Both
Energy employees compensation fund	11.3	59	1052	Cash
September 11th victim compensation	11.3	60	49	Cash
Refugee assistance and other	11.3	61	4403	Both
351 Farm income stabilization	3.2	42	20012	Cash
352 Agricultural research and services	3.2	43	4374	In-Kind
451 Community development	3.2	62	7896	In-Kind
452 Area and regional development	3.2	63	3027	In-Kind
453 Disaster relief and insurance	3.2	64	9747	Both
506 Social services	3.2	72	17299	Both

Potential Types of Programs in Others - Medical (likely more than this):

SAMHSA, Inmate healthcare, Federal Refugee Health Promotion Program, Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, Tricare, Healthy Start, etc

Potential Types of Programs in Others - Public Assistance (likely more than this):

Educational assistance, Pell Grants, Head Start, Job Training, Lifeline

[martinholmer]

@andersonfrailey, Is there still something to be discussed in issue #148? This issue was opened on February 7, 2018, and there has been no discussion in it or reference made to it since March 3, 2018. If the issue is resolved, you might want to closed it.

[andersonfrailey]

I believe we can close this issue now. If anyone involved has further questions they're free to reopen it.

[MaxGhenis]

This spreadsheet starts with @Kpinkelman's table from https://github.com/PSLmodels/taxdata/issues/148#issuecomment-367119322 and adds a column to exclude benefits that are counted outside other_ben. I excluded the following four programs to avoid what I believe would be double-counting:

• Housing assistance (housing_ben)
• Unemployment assistance (e02300)
• Family support payments to States and TANF (tanf_ben)
• Supplemental feeding programs (WIC and CSFP) (wic_ben)

Based on this, the cash share of other_ben ranges from 17% to 35%, depending on if you consider programs labeled Both to be 0% or 100% cash, respectively.