Changes in Spending Patterns Following Unemployment

Abstract

This study is the sixth in a series of reports based on the Arizona Benefit Adequacy (ABA) study. The first report emphasized the measurement of benefit adequacy under the prevailing and selected alternative weekly benefit amount formulas. The second report focused on the adjustments undertaken by beneficiary households during periods of thirteen and twenty five consecutive weeks of compensated unemployment. The third study analyzed the labor market experiences of those study group claimants who exhausted their entitlement to unemployment insurance (UI) benefits. In the fourth report, estimates of the changes in regular UI program costs associated with changes in the weekly benefit amount formula were provided, and a general procedure was developed for assessing the impact the impact of changes in the weekly benefit amount formula on UI program costs and benefit adequacy. The fifth report provided an analysis of the possibility of predicting benefit adequacy values for individual claimants on the basis of information available from the Continuous Wage and Benefit History files. The present report represents a direct extension of the analysis provided in the second report on this study. A brief summary of some portions of this earlier report is provided in this paper as background for the analysis. Whereas the second report dealt with a wide variety of adjustments made by persons unemployed for thirteen and twenty-five consecutive weeks, this report provides detail on the changes in spending on thirteen categories of expenditures made by the study group between the preunemployment month and the month prior to the thirteenth week of unemployment.