Effects of a tax-time savings experiment on material and health care hardship among low-income filers

Material and health care hardship is common among households with low incomes and is associated with a host of adverse outcomes but can be mitigated with having savings. The authors assessed the effects of online tax-time savings interventions informed by behavioral economics on hardship among a sample of low- and moderate-income tax filers (N = 4,738). The authors find that filers who received an intervention had a statistically significant, lower probability of both types of hardship 6 months after tax filing, compared to the control group. However, this result does not hold when incorporating household financial characteristics and prior hardship to models.

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Project: Refund to Savings (R2S)