Background More than 20 years ago, the United States undertook a major revision of its poverty support programs with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWRA) , also known as “welfare to work”. The reform was intended to provide the incentives, and support system, needed to move recipients into the labor force. Daly and Kwok (FRBSF Economic Letter 2009) reported it as a great success, but noted that the aggregate improvement might mask underlying issues impacting subgroups.
Social policy is again under consideration, as an attempt to lower the budget deficit and implement a new administration’s philosophy and as anger over companies that pay so little that full time employees qualify for assistance grows. Johnson (2010) used individual-level data to demonstrate the impact of policy reforms on the education received by African-American single mothers. In a similar way, rather than look at the aggregate statistic of how many people receive benefits, our paper looks at who is receiving benefits.
Data and Methods Using Census Integrated Public Use Micro-Data, those receiving SNAP benefits will be examined. A probit model is estimated to illustrate the impact of family status, race, occupation and other influences on the likelihood of being working while on SNAP. While our focus is on the 2017 (Integrated Public Use Microdata Series) IPUMS sample, previous years will be compared.
Results Many factors influence the work status of SNAP recipients. In particular, females are less likely to be working than males who are on SNAP. African American recipients and parents who are receiving SNAP are less likely to be working. Marital status, education and occupation are also explored.
Policy implications Trump’s administration has proposed a ‘food box’ in place of cash assistance and an increase in work restrictions through modification of the Farm Bill. In addition, the rising budget deficit in the face of a partially unfunded tax cut has increased pressure on social programs such as SNAP. Understanding SNAP’s impact on individuals is a critical piece of the policy debate.