Recent Trends in Food Stamp Participation among Poor Families with Children

Assessing the New Federalism Discussion Paper No. 04-03

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

Food stamp caseloads increased by 26 percent over the three-year period ending October 2003. Over 9 million families received food stamp benefits in October 2003 compared with 7.3 million in October 2000. The recent increase in the number of families receiving food stamps represents a stunning reversal of the 40 percent caseload decline that occurred between 1994 and 2000.

Economic forces and changes in food stamp policy both probably played a role in the caseload swings. The caseload declines in the 1994-2000 period occurred during a time of unprecedented economic expansion. Also, federal welfare reforms in 1996 restricted access to food stamps for some groups. Conversely, the recent caseload increases occurred during an economic retraction. The economy slowed after 2000 and officially entered a recession in March 2001. While the recession was shallow and only lasted eight months, job growth was shallow at best through 2003. During this period, food stamp policies and regulations changed to encourage participation, especially among former welfare and working poor families.

This paper uses data from the 1997-2002 rounds of the National Survey of America's Families (NSAF) to explore changes in food stamp program participation among poor families with children. The survey covers a large portion of the time when the Food Stamp Program (FSP) rules and economy were in flux. We focus on the relationship between food stamp and cash welfare participation because program procedures were designed to help families leaving welfare retain food stamps. We show trends in participation, explore changes in family characteristics that may have affected participation, and use regression analyses to highlight family characteristics most associated with FSP participation.

We find that FSP participation rates increased substantially for families that left welfare between 2000 and 2002 compared with their counterparts that left welfare between 1997 and 1999. Rates also were significantly higher in 2002 for extremely poor families (income below one-half the federal poverty level) with welfare experience prior to 2000. In contrast, participation rates did not change for poor families with children that had no welfare experience in their adult lives.

The results point to the success of the new FSP rules and procedures in increasing participation for families with some welfare experience. We examine changes in characteristics that affect eligibility and participation such as income level, immigrant status, work status, and the presence of other adults in the family for families with welfare experience. Their characteristics did not change in ways that would predict the observed trends. However, there is substantial documentation that states took advantage of new opportunities to expand access to low-income families and made changes in their administrative procedures to ensure that families leaving welfare were not automatically cut from the food stamp rolls. The new state rules and procedures would seem to explain increased participation among families with children that also had experience in states' welfare programs.

The results also highlight the continued low levels of program participation for poor families with children that are outside the cash welfare system. For example, only about one-quarter of families in extreme poverty with no welfare experience reported receiving food stamps in all three years of the NSAF. We used regression analysis to identify factors that might help to explain these families' low program participation rates. These results indicate that factors associated with shorter term economic deprivation (such as having a higher income in the prior year and asset ownership) are associated with lower rates of participation. However, current or former participation in welfare is the strongest predictor of food stamp participation for families with children even after controlling for many other factors. The results could indicate either that the program knowledge gained as a welfare participant facilitates participation or that families simply differ in their acceptance of government assistance.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

About the Series

Assessing the New Federalism is a multiyear Urban Institute project designed to analyze the devolution of responsibility for social programs from the federal government to the states, focusing primarily on health care, income security, employment and training programs, and social services. Researchers monitor program changes and fiscal developments. Alan Weil is the project director. In collaboration with Child Trends, the project studies changes in family well-being. The project aims to provide timely, nonpartisan information to inform public debate and to help state and local decisionmakers carry out their new responsibilities more effectively.

Key components of the project include a household survey and studies of policies in 13 states, available at the Urban Institute's web site, http://www.urban.org. This paper is one in a series of discussion papers analyzing information from these and other sources.

Research for this discussion paper was funded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. The Assessing the New Federalism project is currently supported by The Annie E. Casey Foundation, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and The Ford Foundation.

The authors wish to thank Greg Acs for insightful comments on an earlier grant.

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

Usage, posting and reprint of materials on the UI web site:

Most publications may be downloaded free of charge from the web site in PDF format. This information may be used and copies made for research, academic, policy or other non-commercial purposes. Proper attribution is required.

Copyright of the written materials contained within the Urban Institute website is owned or controlled by the Urban Institute. Posting UI research papers on other websites is permitted subject to prior approval from the Urban Institute—contact paffairs@urban.org.

If you are unable to access or print the PDF document please contact us or call the Publications Office at (202) 261-5687.