The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the largest nutritional safety net in the United States. Prior research has found that participants have higher consumption shortly after receiving their benefits, followed by lower consumption towards the end of the benefit month. This “SNAP benefit cycle” has been found to have negative effects on beneficiaries. We examine two behavioral responses of SNAP participants that may work in tandem to drive much of the cycle: short-run impatience – a higher preference to consume today; and fungibility of income – the degree of substitutability between a SNAP dollar and a cash dollar. Using data from the National Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS), we find evidence of both behavioral responses. The degree of short-run impatience and fungibility of income is found to differ significantly across poverty levels and use of grocery lists to plan food purchases. Food purchase planning education could be used to counter the observed benefit cycle. Deeper analysis of the purchase data suggests that the benefit cycle is primarily associated with a decrease in the purchase of healthful and perishable foods—which could lead to lower dietary quality. We also find evidence that suggests households compensate for the effects of the SNAP benefit cycle by acquiring free food, primarily from schools. This highlights the importance of programs like the National School Lunch Program for SNAP households.
FoodAPS
USDA's National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS) is a nationally representative survey of American households that collects comprehensive data about household food purchases and acquisitions. Detailed information was collected about foods purchased or otherwise acquired for consumption at home and away from home, including foods acquired through food and nutrition assistance programs. In addition, the survey collects a wide array of demographic and other information about the households including information on food security status and SNAP participation. The survey includes nationally representative data from 4,826 households, including SNAP households and low-income households not participating in SNAP—both of which are oversampled in the survey, as well as higher income households.
UKCPR, in cooperation with the Economic Research Service (ERS) and Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, along with the University of Illinois, launched the FoodAPS Research Initiative in 2014. The program competitively awarded grants to provide rigorous research that utilized the new USDA National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS) to expand our understanding of (1) household food behaviors and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program including the issues of benefit adequacy, diet quality, cost of a healthy diet, and food security, and (2) the role of the local food environment and other geographic factors on household food purchase and acquisition decisions. In addition to the FoodAPS data, geographically linked data on the local food environment and food prices compiled as part of the FoodAPS Geography Component (FoodAPS-GC) was available. Fifteen grants were awarded across the two topical domains. The final reports are available as discussion papers below, along with a summary of those reports by James Ziliak and Craig Gundersen.
2016
Do SNAP recipients get the best prices?
This paper examines the relationship between SNAP participation and prices paid for food items. To test this relationship, we develop an expensiveness index following the method of Aguiar and Hurst (2007) and use the FoodAPS data set. Using both the ordinary least squares method and controlling for endogeneity using an instrumental variables approach, we found SNAP participation did not hold a statistically significant relationship with the prices paid for food items when we controlled for consumer behavior and food market variables. This suggests that SNAP participants are not systematically disadvantaged in their food purchases. Additional efforts to further educate SNAP participants of effective shopping and budgeting habits may be fruitful in helping households pay comparatively lower food prices.
Contextualizing family food decisions: The role of household characteristics, neighborhood deprivation, and local food environments
We employ multilevel models with neighborhood and state effects (fixed effects and random effects) to analyze the associations between household characteristics, neighborhood characteristics, regional attributes and dietary quality. We use data from the USDA National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey. Our dependent variable is a Healthy Eating Index that incorporates dollars spent and amount of food in several categories. Key explanatory variables at the household level include variables household financial condition, housing burden, home ownership, car access, household size. We include a variable for the number of large food stores in the neighborhood, a neighborhood deprivation index, and a regional food price index, along with neighborhood and state random effects. Our model shows that at the household level, financial condition and home ownership are significantly and positively related to dietary quality, while U.S. citizenship status and living in a rural area were negatively associated with dietary quality. The number of large food stores in the neighborhood is significantly and positively associated with dietary quality. Neighborhood deprivation is not significantly associated with dietary quality, nor is the regional food price index. However, the neighborhood and state random effects variables were both significant, and the neighborhood variable explains close to half of the variation in household dietary quality. Our results highlight the complexity of understanding factors at different spatial scales that influence dietary quality. Food environments are important in shaping household food decisions, as are household finances. Future research should work on untangling additional neighborhood-level factors that matter for dietary quality.
Food store choice of poor households: A discrete choice analysis of the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey
Policymakers are pursing initiatives to increase food access for low-income households. However, due in part to previous data deficiencies, there is still little evidence supporting the assumption that improved food store access will alter dietary habits, especially for the poorest of U.S. households. This article uses the new National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS) to estimate consumer food outlet choices as a function of outlet type and household attributes in a multinomial mixed logit. In particular, we allow for the composition of the local retail food environment to play a role in explaining household store choice decisions and food acquisition patterns. We find that (1) households are willing to pay more per week in distance traveled to shop at superstores, supermarkets, and fast food outlets than at farmers markets and smaller grocery stores, and (2) willingness to pay is heterogeneous across income group, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participation, and other household and food environment characteristics. Our results imply that policymakers should consider incentivizing the building of certain outlet types over others, and that Healthy Food Financing Initiatives should be designed to fit the sociodemographic composition of each identified low-income, low-access area in question.