The Impact of Medicaid Expansion on Eviction Rates

Abstract

Studies have shown that the expansion of Medicaid, the public health insurance program for low-income Americans, is associated with improvements in financial wellbeing among new recipients. Building on this literature, I explore the relationship between Medicaid expansion and a significant financial outcome that researchers only recently have begun to study: housing instability. Specifically, I use panel data from 2010 to 2016 to explore the relationship between Medicaid expansion and eviction rates, comparing adjacent counties on either side of the border between states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and those that did not. Though the magnitude and level of statistical significance of my estimates vary, I consistently find that Medicaid expansion is associated with lower eviction rates. Notably, I find that the impact of Medicaid expansion varies with counties’ poverty level, with those counties between the 0 to 50th and 75th to 100th percentile of the distribution of poverty within my sample having the largest impacts, and counties in the 50th to 75th percentile category experiencing no noticeable impact.