Abstract

Not only does domestic violence have a physical and emotional effect on a victim, but it also often leads to financial hardship. Domestic violence victims revert to applying for welfare, and if granted receive some financial aid. But does this set the victim even further back financially, and even lower on the poverty line? The intent of this study is to examine how the domestic violence rates of a state impacts the number of individuals who receives TANF benefits (welfare). A time fixed effects model as well as a state fixed effects model is used to run the panel data set. The findings are contrary to previous literature, that states with lower domestic violence have a greater number of welfare usage than states with high domestic violence.

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