This study examines the decoupled nature of direct payments and counter-cyclical payments to determine if they have an impact on U.S. rice area harvested. A naïve expectations model was specified, with the results indicating that direct payments are decoupled; however, counter-cyclical are not. Overall, the results indicate that a change in the expected gross margin or counter-cyclical payments would stimulate a supply response in rice production. The lack of a significant amount of time-series data renders results of this analysis as preliminary.