Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

In April 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) temporarily increased Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits by an average of 16 percent. On November 1, 2013, this temporary boost by ARRA expired and SNAP benefits reverted to pre-ARRA levels, resulting in a cut in SNAP allotment for the first time in the program’s history. This ARRA sunset caused a participating family of 4 to lose $36 a month in benefits. This may seem like a small change, however, it is a significant reduction especially for a food insecure household, as it amounts to less than $1.40 per person per meal (Dean and Rosenbaum, 2013). SNAP accounts for approximately 50 percent of food-at-home spending of low income households and 10--15 percent of total U.S. food-at-home expenditures (Beatty and Tuttle, 2014). With the growing importance of SNAP to many low-income households, the reduction to SNAP benefits in 2013 is predicted to worsen food security among the SNAP participants (Rosenbaum and Keith-Jennings, 2013). Yet, there is little research dedicated towards understanding the effect of the SNAP benefit cut.

Using the Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement (CPS-FSS) 2012−2014, we examine the effects of 2013 SNAP cut on food security. Specifically, CPS-FSS is an annual supplement to the monthly Current Population Survey, and collects data on SNAP participation, food expenditures, and food security status of U.S. households in December of every year. We compare food security in December 2013 and 2014 with the corresponding statistics for December 2012 using difference-in-differences estimation. We find that reduced SNAP benefits significantly threaten food security for SNAP participating households. In addition, we also investigate the effects on food spending, SNAP participation, and SNAP benefit amount to uncover any related changes in these outcomes.

This is the first article to quantify the effects of 2013 SNAP benefit cut on food insecurity. There are research papers that have used a similar quasi-experimental design to study the effects of the 2009 ARRA SNAP benefit increase on food security (Nord and Prell, 2011) and on food expenditures (Beatty and Tuttle, 2014).