Over the past 20 years, the U.S transfer system has seen a substantial shift in responsibility from the federal government to state governments. States have been given increased flexibility in setting parameters for income assistance, childcare assistance, and health care programs, among others. Despite this increased responsibility, state policymakers are often only dimly aware of the consequences of their decisions for work and family structure incentives. This study examines the impact of

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... te-determined tax and transfer parameters on work and family structure incentives for welfare recipients. While our work focuses on tax and transfer programs in place during July 1999 in the state of Oklahoma, we believe that the general results of our analysis are applicable elsewhere. In particular, we demonstrate how state-determined programs often have large work and family structure disincentives. While one could imagine that these disincentives represent strategic tradeoffs made in pursuit of other goals, our experience suggests that this is rarely the case: Policy-makers are frequently unaware of the existence of these tradeoffs. It is our hope that this study will stimulate a greater appreciation of the potential consequences that state-determined programs have for the work and family structure decisions of public assistance recipients .