When Cash Safety Nets Fade: SNAP-Participating Households with Children Without Cash Income

Vincent A. Fusaro () and David Seith
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Vincent A. Fusaro: School of Social Work, Boston College
David Seith: Rutgers University

Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 2024, vol. 45, issue 2, No 17, 470-483

Abstract: Abstract The proportion of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)/food stamps-participating households with children with no reported cash income increased from 5 to 15% from 1997 to 2019. In this article, we examine the relationship between changes in state cash assistance coverage under Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the probability a SNAP-participating household with children reports no cash income. Using household-level data from the SNAP/food stamps Quality Control system (1996–2019; n = 491,059) merged with state-year data including measures of cash assistance coverage (ratio of families receiving aid to families in poverty and families receiving aid to single mother households below poverty), we estimated a set of logit models of the probability that households with children participating in SNAP reported no cash income. We found that higher levels of state TANF cash assistance coverage were associated with a reduced probability of households reporting no cash income and that this relationship was particularly focused in single-parent households, precisely those most affected by the changes in traditional cash welfare enacted in the mid-1990s.

Keywords: Poverty; Temporary assistance for needy families; Welfare reform; Supplemental nutrition assistance program; State policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1007/s10834-023-09909-9

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