IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pubeco/v179y2019ics004727271930115x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Leaving benefits on the table: Evidence from SNAP

Author

Listed:
  • Gray, Colin

Abstract

Many social insurance programs require that beneficiaries periodically re-verify eligibility, allowing officials to identify ineligible applicants but risking the loss of eligible applicants who do not complete these requirements. While many states have invested in simplified verification procedures to reduce that risk, the extent of exit among eligible beneficiaries and the efficacy of these simplifications is not well established. This paper uses administrative data from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to establish three facts. First, retention in SNAP is low, with approximately one-half of entering cases leaving in the first year. Second, qualitative evidence and quantitative simulations suggest that approximately half of those who exit in the first year remain eligible. Third, using the staggered roll-out of an online case management tool in Michigan, I find that this simplification reduced the rate of long-term exit at key verification dates by almost 2pp (12%). These facts suggest that eligible retention is very incomplete, and that ongoing simplification efforts increase retention among eligible beneficiaries.

Suggested Citation

  • Gray, Colin, 2019. "Leaving benefits on the table: Evidence from SNAP," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:179:y:2019:i:c:s004727271930115x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2019.104054
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004727271930115X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2019.104054?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zhuan Pei, 2017. "Eligibility Recertification and Dynamic Opt-In Incentives in Income-Tested Social Programs: Evidence from Medicaid/CHIP," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 241-276, February.
    2. Bruce D. Meyer & Nikolas Mittag, 2015. "Using Linked Survey and Administrative Data to Better Measure Income: Implications for Poverty, Program Effectiveness and Holes in the Safety Net," Upjohn Working Papers 15-242, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    3. David Ribar, 2014. "How to improve participation in social assistance programs," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 104-104, December.
    4. Amy Finkelstein & Matthew J Notowidigdo, 2019. "Take-Up and Targeting: Experimental Evidence from SNAP," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(3), pages 1505-1556.
    5. Peter Ganong & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2018. "The Decline, Rebound, and Further Rise in SNAP Enrollment: Disentangling Business Cycle Fluctuations and Policy Changes," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 153-176, November.
    6. Alexandre Belloni & Victor Chernozhukov & Christian Hansen, 2014. "High-Dimensional Methods and Inference on Structural and Treatment Effects," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(2), pages 29-50, Spring.
    7. repec:iza:izawol:journl:y:2014:p:104 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marks, Mindy & Prina, Silvia & Tahaj, Redina, 2024. "Short-term labor supply response to the timing of transfer payments: Evidence from the SNAP program," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    2. Marks, Mindy & Prina, Silvia & Tahaj, Redina, 2023. "Short-Term Labor Supply Response to the Timing of Transfer Payments: Evidence from the SNAP Program," IZA Discussion Papers 16299, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Marks, Mindy & Prina, Silvia & Gernhardt, Roy, 2023. "Government Shutdown and SNAP Disbursements: Effects on Household Expenditures," IZA Discussion Papers 16452, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Erik Hembre & Katherine McElroy & Shogher Ohannessian, 2024. "Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and food expenditures: Evaluating California's cash‐out policy," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 42(3), pages 544-573, July.
    5. Colin Gray & Adam Leive & Elena Prager & Kelsey Pukelis & Mary Zaki, 2023. "Employed in a SNAP? The Impact of Work Requirements on Program Participation and Labor Supply," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 306-341, February.
    6. Flores-Lagunes, Alfonso & Jales, Hugo B. & Liu, Judith & Wilson, Norbert L., 2023. "Moving Policies Toward Racial and Ethnic Equality: The Case of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1272, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    7. Wu, Derek & Meyer, Bruce D., 2023. "Certification and Recertification in Welfare Programs: What Happens When Automation Goes Wrong?," IZA Discussion Papers 16294, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Schanzenbach, Diane Whitmore, 2023. "Understanding SNAP: An overview of recent research," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    9. repec:ags:aaea22:335863 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Aimee Chabot & Maximilian Hell, 2023. "Using Technology and Iterative Research to Strengthen the Social Safety Net," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 706(1), pages 256-275, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tatiana Homonoff & Jason Somerville, 2021. "Program Recertification Costs: Evidence from SNAP," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 271-298, November.
    2. Laura Castell & Marc Gurgand & Clément Imbert & Todor Tochev, 2024. "Take-up of Social Benefits: Experimental Evidence from France," PSE Working Papers halshs-04720989, HAL.
    3. Colin Gray, 2018. "Why Leave Benefits on the Table? Evidence from SNAP," Upjohn Working Papers 18-288, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    4. Bruce D. Meyer & Derek Wu, 2018. "The Poverty Reduction of Social Security and Means-Tested Transfers," NBER Working Papers 24567, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Ethan M. J. Lieber & Lee M. Lockwood, 2019. "Targeting with In-Kind Transfers: Evidence from Medicaid Home Care," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(4), pages 1461-1485, April.
    6. repec:agg:journl:3557 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. repec:agg:journl:2420 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Colin Gray & Adam Leive & Elena Prager & Kelsey Pukelis & Mary Zaki, 2023. "Employed in a SNAP? The Impact of Work Requirements on Program Participation and Labor Supply," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 306-341, February.
    9. Bastian, Jacob E. & Jones, Maggie R., 2021. "Do EITC expansions pay for themselves? Effects on tax revenue and government transfers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    10. Kerstin Bruckmeier & Katrin Hohmeyer & Stefan Schwarz, 2018. "Welfare receipt misreporting in survey data and its consequences for state dependence estimates: new insights from linked administrative and survey data," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 52(1), pages 1-21, December.
    11. Gonzalez, Felipe & Prem, Mounu & von Dessauer, Cristine, 2023. "Empowerment or Indoctrination? Women Centers Under Dictatorship," SocArXiv 64mf9, Center for Open Science.
    12. Daniel I. Tannenbaum, 2020. "The Effect of Child Support on Selection into Marriage and Fertility," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(2), pages 611-652.
    13. Bruch, Sarah K. & van der Naald, Joseph & Gornick, Janet C., 2022. "Poverty Reduction through Federal and State Policy Mechanisms: Variation Over Time and Across the U.S. States," SocArXiv jz5xp, Center for Open Science.
    14. Anil Kumar, 2018. "Do Restrictions on Home Equity Extraction Contribute to Lower Mortgage Defaults? Evidence from a Policy Discontinuity at the Texas Border," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 268-297, February.
    15. Ay, Jean-Sauveur & Le Gallo, Julie, 2021. "The Signaling Values of Nested Wine Names," Working Papers 321851, American Association of Wine Economists.
    16. Goda, Gopi Shah & Levy, Matthew R. & Flaherty Manchester, Colleen & Sojourner, Aaron & Tasoff, Joshua & Xiao, Jiusi, 2023. "Are retirement planning tools substitutes or complements to financial capability?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 561-573.
    17. Mittag, Nikolas, 2016. "Correcting for Misreporting of Government Benefits," IZA Discussion Papers 10266, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Yuexin Li & Xiaoyin Ma & Luc Renneboog, 2024. "In Art We Trust," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(1), pages 98-127, January.
    19. Davide Viviano & Jelena Bradic, 2019. "Synthetic learner: model-free inference on treatments over time," Papers 1904.01490, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    20. Yoganathan, Vignesh & Osburg, Victoria-Sophie, 2024. "The mind in the machine: Estimating mind perception's effect on user satisfaction with voice-based conversational agents," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    21. David S. Lee & Pauline Leung & Christopher J. O’Leary & Zhuan Pei & Simon Quach, 2021. "Are Sufficient Statistics Necessary? Nonparametric Measurement of Deadweight Loss from Unemployment Insurance," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(S2), pages 455-506.
    22. Pedro Carneiro & Sokbae Lee & Daniel Wilhelm, 2020. "Optimal data collection for randomized control trials," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 23(1), pages 1-31.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:179:y:2019:i:c:s004727271930115x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505578 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.