From Bloomberg View:
Economists Hilary Hoynes of the University of California at Berkeley and Marianne Bitler of UC Irvine explored how well automatic stabilizers in the U.S. are working. … The U.S. is doing a significantly worse job of protecting its most vulnerable households than it did a few decades ago.
 
For the full story, please visit http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-01-04/being-poor-is-getting-scarier-in-the-us.