Evaluating the effect of SNAP benefit expansion and contraction persistence, financial stability, and employment

Social and Economic Outcomes

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To help protect households from pandemic-related financial hardship, the federal government temporarily authorized the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or CalFresh in California) to broaden its eligibility criteria, reduce administrative hurdles for participating, and steadily increase benefit amounts so that participants were receiving at least $95 more per month by April 2021. These policy changes ended in April 2023. Although they represent some of the largest expansions to food assistance in US history, little is known about how they impacted enrollment or participants’ financial health – particularly among people of color, individuals with very low or no income, and women, who were among the hardest hit by the pandemic.

We aim to bridge this knowledge gap by estimating the effect of increasing and subsequently reducing benefits on recipients’ continued enrollment in CalFresh, their employment and earnings, as well as markers of overall financial health, including credit scores, debt levels, and late payment rates. This work builds on a new dataset that links CalFresh participants’ enrollment information with their credit and debt outcomes, and will shed new light on the potential role of CalFresh in reducing the economic impact of future public health crises among low-income or otherwise disadvantaged families. 