Work requirements are a central feature of U.S. welfare program design. The Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) imposes a time limit on benefit receipt for able-bodied
adults without dependents (ABAWDs) who do not meet work requirements. This time limit was
suspended nationally during the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic, with staggered
reimplementation occurring at the county level following each suspension. We construct a novel
county-month panel dataset on ABAWD waiver status and pair it with American Community
Survey microdata to estimate the effects of time limit reimplementation using a triple-difference
design that exploits variation across counties and age groups on either side of the work requirement
eligibility cutoff. We find that reimplementation significantly reduced SNAP participation among
ABAWDs subject to work requirements following the Great Recession suspension and increased
employment and labor force participation among these adults in both reimplementation periods.
We also identify impacts on similar older adults who were not subject to the work requirements,
especially in the form of reduced SNAP participation, suggesting the role of indirect costs of par-
ticipation associated with work requirements. Estimates on ABAWD SNAP benefits and earned
income are consistent with the participation and employment findings, and mechanism analysis
suggests the participation decline is at least partly driven by ABAWDs moving to employment
and exiting SNAP—the generally intended effect of work requirements.
