Food Stamps and the Elderly: Why Is Participation so Low?

Haider, Steven J.; Jacknowitz, Alison; Schoeni, Robert F.

doi:10.2307/3558982

Cited by 92 publications

(108 citation statements)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Several other studies have reported lower participation rates among the elderly (6,9) . In the CWHS, older women cite reasons related to lack of information for not applying more often than stigma.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Why do low-income women not use food stamps? Findings from the California Women’s Health Survey

Kaiser

2008

Public Health Nutr.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Objective: To determine factors associated with Food Stamp Program (FSP) participation in a potentially eligible California population. Design: The California Women's Health Survey is an on-going annual telephone survey that collects data about health-related attitudes and behaviours from a randomly selected sample of women. Statistical procedures included x 2 and logistic regression. Setting: California, USA, from 2002 to 2004. Subjects: A total of 527 FSP female participants and 1405 potentially eligible nonparticipant females, aged 18 years and older. Results: The following characteristics remained independently and positively related to FSP participation: single mother with children; unemployed; on welfare; on WIC (the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children); and US-born. Women under 25 years and those over 54 years were less likely to participate than women aged 25-54 years. Hispanic/Latino ethnicity was also negatively related to participation. Over 42 % of potentially eligible nonparticipants cited 'don't need them' as the reason for not applying for FSP, but 34?9 % either do not think they are eligible or do not know how to apply. Potentially eligible non-participants who cite 'don't need them' as a reason for not applying are less likely to be food insecure, to have inadequate income and to use alternative emergency aid, compared to women citing all other reasons. The highest level of need is among those who cite worry about citizenship or stigma as reasons for not applying. Conclusion: Strategies to increase participation in FSP should incorporate messages that change the public's perception of the programme, in addition to simplifying the application process, raising awareness of eligibility criteria and improving customer service.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Why do low-income women not use food stamps? Findings from the California Women’s Health Survey

Kaiser

2008

Public Health Nutr.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The estimators for binary choice models with misreporting (Bollinger and David, 1997; require predicted probabilities of misreporting for each individual. Analyses of program take-up such as Haider, Jacknowitz and Schoeni (2003) could avoid the bias in their estimates by calculating these probabilities fromf…”

Section: Conditional Density Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, as I show in section 5, obtaining consistent estimates from public use data is simple if information about the relation between true and observed variables is available. Studies of program take-up (e.g., Currie and Grogger, 2001;Haider, Jacknowitz and Schoeni, 2003;Currie, 2004) use reported receipt as the dependent variable in binary choice models. Bollinger and David (1997) and Meyer, Goerge and Mittag (2012) find significant bias due to misreporting in probit models.…”

Section: Misreporting Of Government Programs and Its Consequencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Method of Correcting for Misreporting Applied to the Food Stamp Program

Mittag

2013

SSRN Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…1 Some examples include McGarry 1996;Choi 1998;Davies 2002;Haider, Jacknowitz, and Schoeni 2003;Levy 2008;and Wu 2009. 2 There are some very recent variations in eligibility rules across states for the SNAP.…”

Section: Using the Health And Retirement Study (Hrs) Linked To Adminimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Low take-up by the elderly in most means-tested transfer programs is a persistent and puzzling phenomenon: estimated elderly take-up rates for Supplement Security Income (SSI) range from 38 to 73 percent (for example, Coe 1983;Shields et al 1990;McGarry 1996;Strand, Rupp, and Davies 2009) and less than 35 percent for the Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) (Haider, Jacknowitz, and Schoeni 2003;Wolkwitz and Leftin 2008;Wu 2009). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%