The Take Up of Social Benefits

Abstract

This paper offers a review of recent literature regarding the take up of social programs in theU.S. and U.K. A few general conclusions are drawn: First, take up is enhanced by automaticor default enrollment and lowered by administrative barriers, although removing individualbarriers does not necessarily have much effect, suggesting that one must address the wholebundle. Second, although it may be impossible to devise a definitive test of the “stigmahypothesis”, other, more concrete types of transactions costs are probably a good deal moreimportant. Third, although people generally have means-tested programs in the United Statesin mind when they discuss take up, low take up is also a problem in many non means-testedsocial insurance programs and in other countries.Historically, economists have paid little attention to rules about eligibility, and virtually noattention to how these rules are enforced or made known to eligibles. Hence, the marginalreturn to new data about these features of programs is likely to be high in terms ofunderstanding take up. In an era of social experiments, it might also prove useful to considerexperimental manipulations of factors thought to influence take up.