A Reassessment of the Effect of Income Maintenance on Marital Dissolution in the Seattle-Denver Experiment

Cain and Wissoker claim that income-maintenance treatment had "no effect" on marital dissolution in the Seattle-Denver Income-Maintenance Experiment. Yet parametric and nonparametric analyses reveal that there was a significant increase in the dissolution rate for blacks and whites but not Chicanos. This conclusion holds for many different specifications, including a number that allow free-form time variation in response. While Cain and Wissoker's analyses and results differ in many ways from that of Groeneveld, Hannan, and Tuma, consideration of the full set of estimates (including both main effects and interaction effects) and analyses of the complete samples reveal that their analyses agree that the income-maintenance treatment increased rates of marital dissolution for blacks and whites.