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| Title: | Does SNAP Decrease Food Insecurity? Untangling the Self-Selection Effect |
| Authors: | Nord, Mark
Golla, Anne Marie |
| Authors (Email): | Nord, Mark (marknord@ers.usda.gov) |
| Keywords: | food insecurity
food stamps
food security
hunger
very low food security
SNAP
longitudinal analysis |
| Issue Date: | 2009-10 |
| Series/Report no.: | Economic Research Report
Number 85 |
| Abstract: | Self-selection by more food-needy households into the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly called the Food Stamp Program) makes it difficult to observe positive effects of the program in survey data. This study investigates self-selection and ameliorative program effects by examining households’ food security
month by month for several months prior to initial receipt of SNAP benefits and for
several months after joining the program. Two-year panels are constructed by matching
the same households interviewed in the Current Population Survey Food Security
Supplement in 2 consecutive years using data from 2001 to 2006. Food security is
observed to deteriorate in the 6 months prior to beginning to receive SNAP benefits and to improve shortly after. The results clearly demonstrate the self-selection by households into SNAP at a time when they are more severely food insecure. The results are consistent with a moderate ameliorative effect of SNAP—reducing the prevalence of very low food security among recent entrants by about one-third—although they do not conclusively demonstrate that extent of amelioration. |
| URI: | http://purl.umn.edu/55955 |
| Institution/Association: | United States Department of Agriculture>Economic Research Service>Economic Research Report |
| Total Pages: | 17 |
| Collections: | Economic Research Report
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Size | Format |
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| err-85.pdf | | 170Kb | PDF | View/Open |
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