Suchergebnisse

AbstractThe Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program) is by far the largest of food assistance programs in the U.S. Given its size, there is an expectation it should succeed and an extensive literature has demonstrated its success in improving the well‐being of recipients across numerous dimensions. Its success and popularity is due to many factors but what is especially important is its promotion of the dignity of recipients and allowing for the autonomy of recipients' choices. In contrast, two other well‐known food assistance programs run by the USDA, the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), have imposed hurdles to the goals of dignity and autonomy which have led to many potential participants foregoing benefits. This article begins with a review of each of these three programs. After this review, I discuss how the lessons learned from the success of SNAP can be leveraged by NSLP and WIC.

AbstractThe food insecurity status of a household in the United States is generally put into the categories of food secure, low food secure, or very low food secure. Substantial differences in the level of need within categories are then ignored. In response, I establish a class of food insecurity measure using the binary measure of food insecurity combined with a measure of "dollars needed to be food secure." Using data from the 2010 to 2021 Current Population Survey, I examine whether patterns of food insecurity differ by choice of measure. The two most notable findings are, first, that changes in food insecurity are similar across measures up until 2019 when they began to diverge and, second, that while aggregate rates fell from 2010 to 2021 under all measures, groups especially vulnerable to food insecurity saw smaller declines in the food insecurity rate and increases over other measures.

Abstract"College hunger" has received a great deal of attention in the media and on some campuses across the US. In this article, I consider the question: Are college students more likely to be food insecure than those of similar ages who are not in college? To answer this question, I use data from the 2014 to 2018 Current Population Survey (CPS), the data used for the official food insecurity rates in the US. Across many specifications, I find zero evidence that college students are at higher risk of food insecurity than nonstudents. This holds whether one looks at those between the ages of eighteen and twenty‐five or between twenty‐six and thirty; whether one looks at "person is a child of the respondent" or "person is not a child of the respondent"; or whether one looks at demographic categories. In fact, food insecurity rates are up to twice as high among nonstudents in comparison to full‐time college students.

Abstract The macroeconomy and social policies can have substantial influences on poverty in the United States. In this paper, I investigate whether these influences differ across metro and nonmetro areas. To do so, using a 16‐year panel of state‐level data, I estimate state and year fixed effects models separately for metro and nonmetro areas to see if the effects of the macroeconomy and social policies differ between these two areas. These models are estimated using two measures—the poverty rate and the squared poverty gap—and by family type. I find that cyclical forces have a much stronger effect on the poverty rate in nonmetro areas in comparison to metro areas, but the effects are similar for the squared poverty gap; wage growth has a pronounced effect on poverty in metro areas but no effect in nonmetro areas; and state‐level social policies have slightly larger effects in nonmetro areas, but the effects are small.

AbstractFood insecurity is now recognized as a major health crisis in the United States. This is due to the size of the problem—more than 42 million persons were food insecure in 2015—as well as the multiple negative health outcomes and higher health care costs attributable to food insecurity. An extensive body of literature from multiple fields has examined the causes and consequences of food insecurity and the efficacy of food assistance programs—especially the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. We review this literature and provide suggestions for future research directions. We suggest examining the distribution of food insecurity within households, the impact of the food distribution system on food insecurity, the coping mechanisms of low‐income food secure families, food insecurity among American Indians, the effects of charitable food assistance, the causal relationship between food insecurity and health outcomes, the declining age gradient in food insecurity among Seniors, the effects of labor force participation and the Great Recession on food insecurity, and the long‐term consequences of food insecurity. In addition, the impact of two recent policy recommendations on food insecurity – the minimum wage and the Affordable Care – Act should be considered.

In 2012, nearly 16 million U.S. children, or over one in five, lived in households that were food-insecure, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture defines as "a household-level economic and social condition of limited access to food." Even when we control for the effects of other factors correlated with poverty, these children are more likely than others to face a host of health problems, including but not limited to anemia, lower nutrient intake, cognitive problems, higher levels of aggression and anxiety, poorer general health, poorer oral health, and a higher risk of being hospitalized, having asthma, having some birth defects, or experiencing behavioral problems. Many government programs aim explicitly to reduce food insecurity, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), the School Breakfast Program (SBP), the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). (Other social safety-net programs—for example, the Earned Income Tax Credit—can also help alleviate food insecurity by increasing household income.) The fact that food insecurity remains so high even though the government spent over $100 billion on the various federal food-assistance programs in fiscal year 2012 poses a significant policy challenge. Food insecurity rates remain stubbornly high for a number of reasons. One is that we don't fully understand what causes food insecurity or how food assistance and other programs can help alleviate it. Food insecurity has been researched extensively, and this research has helped policy makers and program administrators better address the problem. However, relatively little research has looked at what causes food insecurity among children in the first place, or the effectiveness of public policies, especially on more severe forms of food hardship. In this policy report, we highlight new research that seeks to fill this gap. Much of this work comes from the Research Program on Childhood Hunger at the University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research, which was underwritten by the Food and Nutrition Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

AbstractFood insecurity among children in the United States remains a serious problem, especially during summer months. While there are summer meal programs such as the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), participation rates are low. In response, in 2019, Meals‐to‐You (MTY) was piloted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture through the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty where food boxes were delivered to households with a focus on rural areas. This was expanded during COVID to an Emergency Meals‐to‐You component. We find that among participating households, those receiving more boxes had larger declines in food insecurity, especially in more remote rural areas.