Communicating amounts in terms of commonly used budgeting periods increases intentions to claim government benefits

Abstract

Millions of eligible families did not claim their 2021 expanded child tax credit (CTC), collectively forgoing billions of dollars. To address this problem, many policymakers focused on increasing awareness of the CTC by highlighting that families could receive up to $3,600 a year per child. However, people rarely budget on a yearly basis. We propose that communicating the CTC benefit amount in terms of commonly used budgeting periods (e.g., $300 a month) instead of uncommonly used budgeting periods (e.g., $3,600 a year) could increase interest in claiming the CTC. Two large-scale field experiments ([Formula: see text]) among low-income individuals support this account. Using common (vs. uncommon) budgeting periods to describe CTC benefit amounts increased CTC claiming intentions by 16 to 26%. A third large-scale field experiment ([Formula: see text]) demonstrated that encouraging people to consider different budgeting periods moderated these effects. These results suggest that communicating amounts in terms of common budgeting periods is a simple, cost-effective way to stimulate interest in claiming government benefits.