Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Extremely hot or cold weather could impose a financial burden for poor families as they face difficult decisions between whether to heat or cool their homes, or to feed their families. With severe budget constraints, they have to choose among necessities such as food, housing, health, transportation, and utilities with a relatively high opportunity cost. In this paper, I find that extreme weather worsens food security of SNAP households and reduces food-at-home spending. It also seems to negatively affect self-assessed health of household heads. The effects are larger for SNAP participating households than for eligible non-participating households.