The Effects of Safety Net Programs on Food Insecurity

Does the safety net reduce food insecurity in families? In this paper we investigate how the structure of benefits for five major safety net programs – TANF, SSI, EITC, SNAP, and Medicaid – affects low food security in families and very low food security among children. We build a calculator for the years 2001-2009 to impute eligibility and benefits for these programs in each state, taking into account cross-program eligibility rules. To identify a causal effect of the safety net, we instrument for imputed eligibility and benefits using simulated eligibility and benefits for a nationally representative sample. Focusing on non-immigrant, single-parent families with incomes below 300 percent of the poverty line, the results suggest that the median annual cash and food package of roughly $3400 reduces low food security by 5.1 percentage points on a base incidence of 33 percent, a 16 percent reduction. The same package reduces the more extreme outcome of childhood very low food security by an imprecisely estimated 36 percent. Controlling for receipt of other program benefits, the SNAP food assistance program improves food security: each $1000 in annual SNAP eligibility reduces low food security by 1.8 percentage points. We are unable to reject equivalent impacts of cash and food assistance. JEL codes: I38, H31 ⊗ This project was supported with a grant from the University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research through funding by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service, contract number AG-3198-B-10-0028. The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the authors and should not be construed as representing the opinions or policies of the UKCPR or any agency of the Federal government. We are grateful to Katie Fitzpatrick, Craig Gundersen, Hilary Hoynes, Jim Ziliak, and participants at the UKCPR Research Program on Childhood Hunger Organizing Workshop and Progress Report Conference for helpful comments, and to Rebecca Blank, Henry Farber, Katie Fitzpatrick, Jordan Matsudaira, and Rob Valletta for sharing data. Wendy Magoronga and Tianyue Zhou provided very helpful research assistance. 1 The Effect of Safety Net Programs on Food Insecurity Schmidt, Shore-Sheppard, and Watson