The federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which supplements the earnings of families by as much as $6,000 a year, is the largest and most successful antipoverty program in the United States. It has significantly increased income among poor families, lifting 6.6 million people out of poverty nationally in 2011 alone and contributing to substantial increases in employment among single mothers. But the federal EITC for single tax filers, which is capped at a maximum annual payment of just over $500, is much less generous and as a result less effective at increasing employment and reducing poverty.

One of the most documented changes in the labor market over the past several decades has been the reduction in real wages for less-skilled workers, a decline that has been concentrated largely among men, who generally don’t qualify for the more generous EITC for families with dependent children. A typical male worker with a high school diploma, for example, earned 15 percent less in 2011 than he did in the early 1970s. This decline in the payoff to work has contributed to reduced employment rates, increased criminal activity, and reduced marriage rates. Research suggests that for single adults an enhanced EITC could increase employment and incomes by as much as 10 percent.

Paycheck Plus, a pilot program to simulate an expanded EITC for low-income single workers without dependent children, is being implemented and evaluated in two U.S. cities: New York, New York and Atlanta, Georgia. The pilot test in New York City began in late 2013 and in Atlanta in October 2015.

Paycheck Plus enrollment has been completed in both New York and Atlanta.

If you are an Atlanta participant and you want to learn how to request your first bonus in 2017, please call 888-366-9647.

If you are a New York City participant and you want to check on your bonus, please wait 2-3 months after you submit your bonus request, and then visit http://paycheckplus.mdrc.org/.