DO SNAP WORK REQUIREMENTS WORK?

Abstract

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act waived Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) work requirements nationally in 2010 and broadened the eligibility for receiving waivers in subsequent years for Able-Bodied Adults without Dependents (ABAWD). From 2011 to 2016, many states voluntarily imposed work requirements, while other areas became ineligible for waivers because of improved economic conditions. Did the work requirements increase employment as intended, or did the policy merely remove food assistance for ABAWD whodespite an improving economy-still could not find employment? Using data from the American Community Survey from 2010 to 2016, I analyze the influence of work requirements on employment and SNAP participation for ABAWD. I find that work requirements significantly decreased SNAP participation and marginally increased employment for ABAWD using Difference-inDifference in Differences estimation. This study contributes to the current policy debates on the effectiveness of expanding or instituting work requirements for welfare programs.

SNAP work requirements increase mental health care use

“…Our study adds to a growing body of recent evidence that SNAP work requirements do not result in large employment gains, but do reduce SNAP participation, especially among vulnerable groups such as those with no income, the unhoused, and those living in rural areas. 6,35,36 Policy makers and future research should seek to better understand these tradeoffs when considering the net impact of SNAP work requirement policies on an alreadymarginalized population.…”

SNAPenrollment cycles: New insights from heterogeneous panel models withcross‐sectionaldependence

“…As an illustrative example of the latter, we can think of the nationwide waiver of time limits for able‐bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs) that occurred in the aftermath of the Great Recession as an unobserved shock common to all states. Previous studies have found that ABAWD work requirements impact both SNAP participation and the unemployment rate (see Cuffey et al, 2022; Harris, 2021). Therefore, we may expect the national waiver of ABAWD work requirements to jointly determine unemployment rates and SNAP caseloads.…”

“…The Great Recession also led policymakers to make changes to SNAP eligibility rules and benefits at the national level. Some examples include the waiver in all 50 states of time limits for able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs) and the 13.6% increase in the maximum SNAP benefit in April 2009 (see, e.g., Harris, 2021;Valizadeh & Smith, 2020). We return to these examples below to further show the intuition behind our empirical approach.…”