Does Prior Government Assistance Reduce Food or Housing Assistance among Low‐Income and Food Insecure Households?

Abstract

Despite extensive research into the receipt of government food and housing assistance separately, only limited evidence informs the possibility that the receipt of assistance for one basic need could reduce the need for assistance meeting another basic need. To investigate this possibility among food insecure and low-income households we examined four years of data from each of the 2004 and 2008 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation. Among low-income and food insecure households we found no evidence that one type of assistance reduced later receipt of the second type of assistance. Rather, results from conditional logistic regression models indicated that receiving one type of assistance was associated with a higher probability of receiving the second type of assistance, or that there was no relationship between the two types of assistance. Factors informing these results are discussed in the context of household help-seeking and government assistance.The task of acquiring sufficient food and shelter represent necessary and large recurring expenses that consume large portions of a household's budget, accounting for approximately 13% and 34%, respectively, of American households' expenditures in 2013 (USDA 2014a). These costs can be difficult to manage, particularly in the face of resource constraints. Making the task more challenging is that the two types of basic needs represent very different opportunities in the face of income or other resource constraints. Housing-related expenditures (e.g., rent or mortgage obligations, utility payments) are often fixed in the short run and tend to be forgone only in the presence of extreme crises. Outside of subsidized housing, where payments are directly linked to household income, even poor quality housing Robert B. Nielsen (rbnielsen@ches.ua.edu) is a Professor at

Consumer Behavior Research: Theoretical and Methodological Paradigms Trending

“…Research that helps to minimize the risk factor and keep people from starving are desperately needed becomes relevant and important in practical life. More research is needed to understand the success of school breakfast programs (Fletcher & Frisvold, 2017), the effectiveness of government food assistance (Nielsen, Seay, & Wilmarth, 2017) or how marital status affects food insecurity (Men, 2017).…”

Family and Consumer Sciences Researchers' publishing prospects: Review of three research journals

“…The researcher also has options to publish in journals with a broader coverage of family and consumer sciences, such as Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences , Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences Education , and FCSRJ , all of which will have additional readership due to the multiple content areas in the family and consumer sciences profession. Professionals in family and consumer sciences‐related disciplines have additional options to publish in journals outside the specific areas of family and consumer sciences (FCS) as demonstrated by the Nielsen et al (2017) study which was published in Journal of Consumer Affairs (JCA) and dealt with food and housing among low‐income and food insecure households.…”