[go: up one dir, main page]
More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/28877.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Employed in a SNAP? The Impact of Work Requirements on Program Participation and Labor Supply

Author

Listed:
  • Colin Gray
  • Adam Leive
  • Elena Prager
  • Kelsey B. Pukelis
  • Mary Zaki
Abstract
Work requirements are common in U.S. safety net programs. Evidence remains limited, however, on the extent to which work requirements increase economic self-sufficiency or screen out vulnerable individuals. Using linked administrative data on food stamps (SNAP) and earnings with a regression discontinuity design, we find robust evidence that work requirements increase program exits by 23 percentage points (64 percent) among incumbent participants after 18 months. There is a 53 percent overall reduction in program participation among adults who are subject to work requirements. Homeless adults are disproportionately screened out. We find no effects on employment, and suggestive evidence of increased earnings in some specifications. Our findings indicate that, per dollar of public expenditure, eliminating work requirements would likely transfer more resources to low-income adults than other programs targeting the same population.

Suggested Citation

  • Colin Gray & Adam Leive & Elena Prager & Kelsey B. Pukelis & Mary Zaki, 2021. "Employed in a SNAP? The Impact of Work Requirements on Program Participation and Labor Supply," NBER Working Papers 28877, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28877
    Note: PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w28877.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Colin Gray, 2018. "Why Leave Benefits on the Table? Evidence from SNAP," Upjohn Working Papers 18-288, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    2. Hilary W. Hoynes & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, 2009. "Consumption Responses to In-Kind Transfers: Evidence from the Introduction of the Food Stamp Program," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(4), pages 109-139, October.
    3. 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.
    4. David C. Ribar & Marilyn Edelhoch & Qiduan Liu, 2010. "Food Stamp Participation among Adult-Only Households," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 77(2), pages 244-270, October.
    5. Chen, Susan & van der Klaauw, Wilbert, 2008. "The work disincentive effects of the disability insurance program in the 1990s," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 757-784, February.
    6. Marc K. Chan, 2013. "A Dynamic Model of Welfare Reform," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(3), pages 941-1001, May.
    7. Gray, Colin, 2019. "Leaving benefits on the table: Evidence from SNAP," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    8. Keane, Michael & Moffitt, Robert, 1998. "A Structural Model of Multiple Welfare Program Participation and Labor Supply," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(3), pages 553-589, August.
    9. Justine Hastings & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2018. "How Are SNAP Benefits Spent? Evidence from a Retail Panel," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(12), pages 3493-3540, December.
    10. Hoynes, Hilary Williamson & Schanzenbach, Diane Whitmore, 2012. "Work incentives and the Food Stamp Program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 151-162.
    11. David Card & David S. Lee & Zhuan Pei & Andrea Weber, 2017. "Regression Kink Design: Theory and Practice," Advances in Econometrics, in: Regression Discontinuity Designs, volume 38, pages 341-382, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    12. Nichols, Albert L & Zeckhauser, Richard J, 1982. "Targeting Transfers through Restrictions on Recipients," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(2), pages 372-377, May.
    13. A. Belloni & D. Chen & V. Chernozhukov & C. Hansen, 2012. "Sparse Models and Methods for Optimal Instruments With an Application to Eminent Domain," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(6), pages 2369-2429, November.
    14. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    15. David Cesarini & Erik Lindqvist & Matthew J. Notowidigdo & Robert Östling, 2017. "The Effect of Wealth on Individual and Household Labor Supply: Evidence from Swedish Lotteries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(12), pages 3917-3946, December.
    16. Guido W. Imbens & Donald B. Rubin & Bruce I. Sacerdote, 2001. "Estimating the Effect of Unearned Income on Labor Earnings, Savings, and Consumption: Evidence from a Survey of Lottery Players," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 778-794, September.
    17. Alberto Abadie & Matthew M. Chingos & Martin R. West, 2018. "Endogenous Stratification in Randomized Experiments," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(4), pages 567-580, October.
    18. 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.
    19. Caroline Danielson & Jacob Alex Klerman, 2006. "Why Did the Food Stamp Caseload Decline (and Rise)? Effects of Policies on the Economy," Working Papers 386, RAND Corporation.
    20. Fraker, Thomas & Moffitt, Robert, 1988. "The effect of food stamps on labor supply : A bivariate selection model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 25-56, February.
    21. 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.
    22. Daniel K. Fetter & Lee M. Lockwood, 2018. "Government Old-Age Support and Labor Supply: Evidence from the Old Age Assistance Program," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(8), pages 2174-2211, August.
    23. Ziliak, James P., 2015. "Income, program participation, poverty, and financial vulnerability: Research and data needs," Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, IOS Press, issue 1-4, pages 27-68.
    24. Caroline Danielson & Jacob Alex Klerman, 2006. "Why Did the Food Stamp Caseload Decline (and Rise)? Effects of Policies on the Economy," Working Papers WR-386, RAND Corporation.
    25. Ritter, Joseph A., 2018. "Incentive effects of SNAP work requirements," Staff Papers 281156, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    26. 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.
    27. David H. Autor & Mark G. Duggan, 2007. "Distinguishing Income from Substitution Effects in Disability Insurance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 119-124, May.
    28. Sergio Firpo & Nicole M. Fortin & Thomas Lemieux, 2009. "Unconditional Quantile Regressions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 953-973, May.
    29. Matias D. Cattaneo & Michael Jansson & Xinwei Ma, 2018. "Manipulation testing based on density discontinuity," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 18(1), pages 234-261, March.
    30. Timothy F. Harris, 2021. "Do Snap Work Requirements Work?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(1), pages 72-94, January.
    31. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 1992. "Workfare versus Welfare Incentive Arguments for Work Requirements in Poverty-Alleviation Programs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(1), pages 249-261, March.
    32. Manasi Deshpande, 2016. "The Effect of Disability Payments on Household Earnings and Income: Evidence from the SSI Children's Program," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(4), pages 638-654, October.
    33. David Card & Dean R. Hyslop, 2005. "Estimating the Effects of a Time-Limited Earnings Subsidy for Welfare-Leavers," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(6), pages 1723-1770, November.
    34. Brigham R. Frandsen, 2017. "Party Bias in Union Representation Elections: Testing for Manipulation in the Regression Discontinuity Design when the Running Variable is Discrete," Advances in Econometrics, in: Regression Discontinuity Designs, volume 38, pages 281-315, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    35. Wilde, Parke E. & Cook, Peggy & Gundersen, Craig & Nord, Mark & Tiehen, Laura, 2000. "The Decline In Food Stamp Program Participation In The 1990'S," Food Assistance and Nutrition Research Reports 33793, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    36. Chloe N. East & Andrew I. Friedson, 2020. "An Apple A Day?," American Journal of Health Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(3), pages 289-323.
    37. Paul A. Hagstrom, 1996. "The Food Stamp Participation and Labor Supply of Married Couples: An Empirical Analysis of Joint Decisions," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 31(2), pages 383-403.
    38. Hanming Fang & Michael P. Keane, 2004. "Assessing the Impact of Welfare Reform on Single Mothers," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 35(1), pages 1-116.
    39. Cuffey, Joel & Mykerezi, Elton & Beatty, Timothy, 2015. "Food Assistance and Labor Force Outcomes of Childless Adults: Evidence from the CPS," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205821, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    40. Sonik, R.A., 2016. "Massachusetts inpatient medicaid cost response to increased supplemental nutrition assistance program benefits," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 106(3), pages 443-448.
    41. McCrary, Justin, 2008. "Manipulation of the running variable in the regression discontinuity design: A density test," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 698-714, February.
    42. Nathaniel Hendren, 2016. "The Policy Elasticity," Tax Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(1), pages 51-89.
    43. Cody Tuttle, 2019. "Snapping Back: Food Stamp Bans and Criminal Recidivism," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 301-327, May.
    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. 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.
    2. Suttles, Shellye A. & Babb, Angela & Knudsen, Daniel, 2022. "Submitted and Denied: Understanding Variation in Case Status Across Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Applications," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322195, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Luke Petach, 2022. "A Tullock Index for assessing the effectiveness of redistribution," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 191(1), pages 137-159, April.
    4. Das, Debasmita, 2019. "SNAP Work Requirement and Food Insecurity," MPRA Paper 109964, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Oct 2021.
    5. Han, Jeehoon, 2022. "The impact of SNAP work requirements on labor supply," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    6. Dodini, Samuel & Larrimore, Jeff & Tranfaglia, Anna, 2024. "Financial repercussions of SNAP work requirements," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    7. Stith Sarah S., 2022. "Effects of work requirements for food assistance eligibility on disability claiming," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 11(1), pages 1-31, January.
    8. Lonnie R. Snowden, 2023. "US states' racial bias correlates with less SNAP participation by “undeserving poor” adults and lower unemployment benefit maximums," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(2), pages 133-149, June.
    9. Andrew F. Haughwout & Benjamin Hyman & Or Shachar, 2021. "The Option Value of Municipal Liquidity: Evidence from Federal Lending Cutoffs during COVID-19," Staff Reports 988, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

    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. Joel Cuffey & Timothy K. M. Beatty & Elton Mykerezi, 2022. "Work Effort and Work Requirements for Food Assistance among U.S. Adults," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 104(1), pages 294-317, January.
    2. Timothy F. Harris, 2018. "Do SNAP Work Requirements Work?," Upjohn Working Papers 19-297, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    3. Melanie Guldi & Lucie Schmidt, 2017. "Taxes, Transfers, and Women’s Labor Supply in the United States," Working Papers 2017-01, University of Central Florida, Department of Economics.
    4. Han, Jeehoon, 2022. "The impact of SNAP work requirements on labor supply," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    5. Timothy F. Harris, 2021. "Do Snap Work Requirements Work?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(1), pages 72-94, January.
    6. Dodini, Samuel & Larrimore, Jeff & Tranfaglia, Anna, 2024. "Financial repercussions of SNAP work requirements," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    7. Janet Currie & Firouz Gahvari, 2008. "Transfers in Cash and In-Kind: Theory Meets the Data," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(2), pages 333-383, June.
    8. East, Chloe N., 2018. "Immigrants’ labor supply response to Food Stamp access," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 202-226.
    9. Hoynes, Hilary Williamson & Schanzenbach, Diane Whitmore, 2012. "Work incentives and the Food Stamp Program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 151-162.
    10. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    11. Fayaz Farkhad, Bita & Meyerhoefer, Chad D., 2018. "The Impact of Participation in SNAP on Labor Force Decisions," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274180, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    12. Das, Debasmita, 2019. "SNAP Work Requirement and Food Insecurity," MPRA Paper 109964, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Oct 2021.
    13. Schanzenbach, Diane Whitmore, 2023. "Understanding SNAP: An overview of recent research," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    14. 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.
    15. Jeehoon Han, 2020. "Snap Expansions And Participation In Government Safety Net Programs," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(4), pages 1929-1948, October.
    16. 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.
    17. Cuffey, Joel & Mykerezi, Elton & Beatty, Timothy, 2015. "Food Assistance and Labor Force Outcomes of Childless Adults: Evidence from the CPS," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205821, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    18. 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.
    19. Marc K. Chan & Robert Moffitt, 2018. "Welfare Reform and the Labor Market," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 10(1), pages 347-381, August.
    20. Federico Tagliati, 2019. "Child labor under cash and in-kind transfers: evidence from rural Mexico," Working Papers 1935, Banco de España.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H53 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
    • I30 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    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:nbr:nberwo:28877. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.