IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/uersrr/58613.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Changing Participation in Food Assistance Programs Among Low-Income Children After Welfare Reform

Author

Listed:
  • Todd, Jessica E.
  • Newman, Constance
  • Ver Ploeg, Michele

Abstract

In 1996, the safety net for poor households with children fundamentally changed when Federal legislation replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). This study investigates participation in, and benefits received from, AFDC/TANF and food assistance programs, before and after the legislation, for children in low-income households (income below 300 percent of the Federal poverty line). The results show that, between 1990 and 2004, the share of children receiving food stamp benefits declined, most notably among children in the poorest households (income below 50 percent of the Federal poverty line). The share of children receiving benefits from the school meals programs and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) rose, mainly among children in low-income households with income above the Federal poverty line. Overall, the share of children in households that received benefits from AFDC/TANF or food assistance programs grew from 35 percent to 52 percent. However, the net result of these changes is that average total inflation-adjusted household benefits from all programs examined declined. The decline was largest among children in the poorest households.

Suggested Citation

  • Todd, Jessica E. & Newman, Constance & Ver Ploeg, Michele, 2010. "Changing Participation in Food Assistance Programs Among Low-Income Children After Welfare Reform," Economic Research Report 58613, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:uersrr:58613
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.58613
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/58613/files/err92.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.58613?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marianne P. Bitler & Jonah B. Gelbach & Hilary W. Hoynes, 2006. "What Mean Impacts Miss: Distributional Effects of Welfare Reform Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 988-1012, September.
    2. Newman, Constance, 2006. "The Income Volatility See-Saw: Implications for School Lunch," Economic Research Report 7237, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    3. Winicki, Joshua, 2001. "Low-Income Families Participating in Fewer Assistance Programs," Food Review/ National Food Review, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, vol. 24(2), pages 1-7.
    4. Bollinger, Christopher R & David, Martin H, 2001. "Estimation with Response Error and Nonresponse: Food-Stamp Participation in the SIPP," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 19(2), pages 129-141, April.
    5. Oliveira, Victor & Frazao, Elizabeth, 2009. "The WIC Program: Background, Trends, and Economic Issues, 2009 Edition," Economic Research Report 55839, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    6. Quinn Moore & Lara Hulsey & Michael Ponza, "undated". "Factors Associated with School Meal Participation and the Relationship Between Different Participation Measures," Mathematica Policy Research Reports bba9e02848c042cbbbfe8e220, Mathematica Policy Research.
    7. Jeffrey Grogger & Charles Michalopoulos, 2003. "Welfare Dynamics under Time Limits," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(3), pages 530-554, June.
    8. repec:mpr:mprres:3699 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Bruce D. Meyer & Wallace K. C. Mok & James X. Sullivan, 2009. "The Under-Reporting of Transfers in Household Surveys: Its Nature and Consequences," Working Papers 0903, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago.
    10. Jeffrey Grogger & Steven J. Haider & Jacob Klerman, 2003. "Why Did the Welfare Rolls Fall During the 1990's? The Importance of Entry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 288-292, May.
    11. Henderson, Everett J. & Capps, Randy & Finegold, Kenneth, 2008. "Impact of 2002-03 Farm Bill Restorations on Food Stamp Use by Legal Immigrants," Contractor and Cooperator Reports 292015, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    12. David C. Ribar & Marilyn Edelhoch & Qiduan Liu, 2008. "Watching the Clocks: The Role of Food Stamp Recertification and TANF Time Limits in Caseload Dynamics," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(1).
    13. Kierman, Jacob Alex & Danielson, Caroline, 2009. "Determinants of the Food Stamp Program Caseload," Contractor and Cooperator Reports 292070, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    14. Moore, Quinn & Hulsey, Lara & Ponza, Michael, 2009. "Factors Associated With School Meal Participation and the Relationship Between Different Participation Measures," Contractor and Cooperator Reports 292073, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    15. Jeffrey Grogger & Steven J. Haider & Jacob Klerman, 2003. "Why Did the Welfare Rolls Fall During the 1990's? The Importance of Entry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 288-292, May.
    16. Moffitt, Robert, 2008. "Welfare reform: the US experience," Working Paper Series 2008:13, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    17. repec:mpr:mprres:6295 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. 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.
    2. Vogel, Stephen & Miller, Cristina & Ralston, Katherine, 2021. "Impact of USDA's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) on Rural and Urban Economies in the Aftermath of the Great Recession," USDA Miscellaneous 314934, United States Department of Agriculture.
    3. 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.

    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. Marianne P. Bitler & Hilary W. Hoynes, 2010. "The State of Social Safety Net in the Post-Welfare Reform Era," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 41(2 (Fall)), pages 71-147.
    2. Marc K Chan, 2014. "Measuring the Dynamic Effects of Welfare Time Limits," Working Paper Series 23, Economics Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney.
    3. Marianne P. Bitler & Hilary W. Hoynes, 2010. "The state of the safety net in the post-welfare reform era," Working Paper Series 2010-31, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    4. Marianne P. Bitler & Jonah B. Gelbach & Hilary W. Hoynes, 2005. "Welfare Reform and Health," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(2).
    5. Thesia I. Garner & Charles Hokayem, 2012. "Supplemental Poverty Measure Thresholds: Imputing School Lunch and WIC Benefits to the Consumer Expenditure Survey Using the Current Population Survey," Working Papers 457, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    6. Haider, Steven J. & Klerman, Jacob Alex, 2005. "Dynamic properties of the welfare caseload," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(5), pages 629-648, October.
    7. Marianne P. Bitler & Jonah B. Gelbach & Hilary W. Hoynes, 2006. "What Mean Impacts Miss: Distributional Effects of Welfare Reform Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 988-1012, September.
    8. Grogger, Jeffrey, 2007. "Markov forecasting methods for welfare caseloads," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(7), pages 900-911, July.
    9. Moffitt, Robert, 2008. "Welfare reform: the US experience," Working Paper Series 2008:13, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    10. Celhay, Pablo & Meyer, Bruce D. & Mittag, Nikolas, 2022. "Stigma in Welfare Programs," IZA Discussion Papers 15431, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Ha Trong Nguyen & Huong Thu Le & Luke Connelly & Francis Mitrou, 2023. "Accuracy of self‐reported private health insurance coverage," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(12), pages 2709-2729, December.
    12. Marc K. Chan, 2017. "Welfare Dependence and Self-Control: An Empirical Analysis," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(4), pages 1379-1423.
    13. 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.
    14. Bruckmeier, Kerstin & Müller, Gerrit & Riphahn, Regina T., 2015. "Survey misreporting of welfare receipt—Respondent, interviewer, and interview characteristics," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 103-107.
    15. Wolfgang Ochel, 2004. "Welfare Time Limits in the United States – Experiences with a New Welfare-to-Work Approach," CESifo Working Paper Series 1210, CESifo.
    16. Magne Mogstad & Chiara Pronzato, 2012. "Are Lone Mothers Responsive to Policy Changes? Evidence from a Workfare Reform in a Generous Welfare State," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(4), pages 1129-1159, December.
    17. Berg, Nathan & Gabel, Todd, 2010. "New Reform Strategies and Welfare Participation in Canada," MPRA Paper 26591, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Orville Mondal & Rui Wang, 2024. "Partial Identification of Binary Choice Models with Misreported Outcomes," Papers 2401.17137, arXiv.org.
    19. Frisvold, David E., 2015. "Nutrition and cognitive achievement: An evaluation of the School Breakfast Program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 91-104.
    20. Stacy Dickert‐Conlin & Katie Fitzpatrick & Brian Stacy & Laura Tiehen, 2021. "The Downs and Ups of the SNAP Caseload: What Matters?," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(3), pages 1026-1050, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public Economics;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ags:uersrr:58613. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ersgvus.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.