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Permanent Fund dividend checks have small but measurable effects on Alaska’s labor market in the months after their distribution, according to new research, slightly increasing the employment rate of men and shortening women’s time at work.
The findings from the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research, released Wednesday, are the latest in a series of intensive studies on the effects of PFD distributions in Alaska. A February report from ISER found that reported incidents of substance abuse in Anchorage rose by 10%in the four weeks after dividends were paid from 2000 through 2016, with property crime falling 8% but violent crime unaffected during the same time period in those years.
Wednesday’s 48-page study,by the institute’s Andrew Bibler, Mouhcine Guettabi and Matthew Reimer, covers a slightly wider time period spanning from 1994 through 2017. The average dividend during those 24 years works out to $1,730.99.