IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/iaf/journl/y2019i4p124-131.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Its Multiplicative Effects: The USA Experience

Author

Listed:
  • Olena Borodina

    (State Organization "Institute for Economics and Forecasting NAS Ukraine", Kyiv, Ukraine)

  • Oksana Mykhaylenko

    (State Organization "Institute for Economics and Forecasting NAS Ukraine", Kyiv, Ukraine)

  • Oleksii Fraier

    (State Organization "Institute for Economics and Forecasting NAS Ukraine", Kyiv, Ukraine)

Abstract

The implementation of state programs to support wellbeing through food subsidies aimed at maintaining a demand, addressing hunger, and reducing poverty is typical for both developed and emerging states. Their experience may be useful for Ukraine where the majority of households face a substantial overload of their budgets. A paradigm example of the public food support program is the USA Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) with a 90-years history. During the last US economic stagnation (2009) the number of program recipients increased up to 50 mln. The paper aims at summarizing the most famous in the world and one that has a long history experience in the implementation and modernization of food subsidies' programs to support families in periods of economic instability and mass impoverishment, identify pros and cons of such programs in maintaining demand and public wellbeing, identification of multiplicative social effects in the course of implementation of food support measures. The study used general and specific research methods, including system analysis, historical method, organizational and economic analysis, graphical and tabular methods, etc. The core of SNAP food subsidies is that the families with non-crossing poverty line income can receive state assistance; it is provided in cash and can be used for purchasing a specific list of products. The actualization of food subsidies in the financial crisis contributed to the renovation of food support mechanisms as the crisis led to the situation when not only illegal immigrants, homeless and unemployed people, and others but also a large number of working people in the US have fallen into the category of people suffering from food insecurity. The experience of SNAP shows that despite the abusive activity, fraud and, in some cases, inefficient spending of budget funds the multiplicative food support social effects to vulnerable people far outweigh the abovementioned problems.

Suggested Citation

  • Olena Borodina & Oksana Mykhaylenko & Oleksii Fraier, 2019. "Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Its Multiplicative Effects: The USA Experience," Oblik i finansi, Institute of Accounting and Finance, issue 4, pages 124-131, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:iaf:journl:y:2019:i:4:p:124-131
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.afj.org.ua/pdf/708-programa-prodovolchoi-pidtrimki-naselennya-ta-ii-multiplikativni-efekti-dosvid-ssha.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.afj.org.ua/en/article/708/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tiehen, Laura & Jolliffe, Dean & Gundersen, Craig, 2012. "Alleviating Poverty in the United States: The Critical Role of SNAP Benefits," Economic Research Report 262233, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Peter R. Mueser & Colleen M. Heflin, 2013. "Aid to Jobless Workers in Florida in the Face of the Great Recession: The Interaction of Unemployment Insurance and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program," Working Papers 1318, Department of Economics, University of Missouri.
    2. Dean Jolliffe & Juan Margitic & Martin Ravallion & Laura Tiehen, 2024. "Food stamps and America's poorest," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 106(4), pages 1380-1409, August.
    3. Abdou, Rawayda & Cassells, Damien & Berrill, Jenny & Hanly, Jim, 2020. "An empirical investigation of the relationship between business performance and suicide in the US," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    4. Colleen Heflin & Michah W. Rothbart & Mattie Mackenzie-Liu, 2022. "Below the Tip of the Iceberg: Examining Early Childhood Participation in SNAP and TANF from Birth to Age Six," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 41(2), pages 729-755, April.
    5. Dharmasena, Senarath & Bessler, David A. & Capps, Oral, 2016. "Food environment in the United States as a complex economic system," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 163-175.
    6. Weerasooriya, Senal A. & Reimer, Jeffrey J., 2016. "Effects of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program on Rural and Urban Areas in Oregon," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235751, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    7. Oliveira, Victor & Prell, Mark & Tiehen, Laura & Smallwood, David, 2018. "Design Issues in USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program: Looking Ahead by Looking Back," Economic Research Report 276253, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    8. Kinsey, Jean D., 2013. "The economics of federal food programs: Weighing the costs and benefits," C-FARE Reports 156193, Council on Food, Agricultural, and Resource Economics (C-FARE).
    9. Rebecca L. Som Castellano, 2017. "Receiving Assistance and Local Food System Participation," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 6(1), pages 1-14, February.
    10. Oliver Denk & Robert P. Hagemann & Patrick Lenain & Valentin Somma, 2013. "Inequality and Poverty in the United States: Public Policies for Inclusive Growth," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1052, OECD Publishing.
    11. Laird, Jennifer & Santelli, Isaac & Waldfogel, Jane & Wimer, Christopher, 2018. "Forgoing Food Assistance out of Fear: Simulating the Child Poverty Impact of a Making SNAP a Legal Liability for Immigrants," SocArXiv 6sgpk, Center for Open Science.
    12. Rothwell, David W. & Weber, Bruce & Giordono, Leanne, 2019. "The Oregon Earned Income Credit’s Impact on Child Poverty," OSF Preprints h6w3g, Center for Open Science.
    13. Yanliang Yang & George C Davis & Wen You, 2019. "Measuring Food Expenditure Poverty in SNAP Populations: Some Extensions with an Application to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(1), pages 133-152, March.
    14. Mancino, Lisa & Guthrie, Joanne & Ver Ploeg, Michele & Lin, Biing-Hwan, 2018. "Nutritional Quality of Foods Acquired by Americans: Findings From USDA's National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey," Economic Information Bulletin 276248, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    15. Marcella Alsan & Crystal Yang, 2018. "Fear and the Safety Net: Evidence from Secure Communities," NBER Working Papers 24731, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Benjamin Scharadin & Edward C. Jaenicke, 2020. "Time spent on childcare and the household Healthy Eating Index," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 357-386, June.
    17. Dharmasena, Senarath & Bessler, David A. & Todd, Jessica, 2016. "Socioeconomic, Demographic and Geographic Factors Affecting Household Food Purchase and Acquisition Decisions in the United States as a Complex Economic System," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235646, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    18. Andrew London & Colleen Heflin, 2015. "Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Use Among Active-Duty Military Personnel, Veterans, and Reservists," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 34(6), pages 805-826, December.
    19. Tiehen, Laura & Jolliffe, Dean & Gundersen, Craig, 2012. "How State Policies Influence the Efficacy of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in Reducing Poverty," 2012 Annual Meeting, August 12-14, 2012, Seattle, Washington 124937, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    20. 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).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    states' programs; food subsidies; demand maintenance; poverty; households; economic stagnation; social effects;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:iaf:journl:y:2019:i:4:p:124-131. 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: Serhiy Ostapchuk (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iafkvua.html .

    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.