Studies of take up in social insurance programs rarely distinguish between initial enrollment and retention of beneficiaries. This paper shows that retention plays a meaningful role in incomplete take up: despite knowledge of and eligibility for a near-cash public benefit, many participants exit...

We examine the consequences of underreporting of transfer programs in household survey data for several prototypical analyses of low-income populations. We focus on the Current Population Survey (CPS), the source of official poverty and inequality statistics, but provide evidence that our...

This paper develops a framework for evaluating the welfare impact of various interventions designed to increase take-up of social safety net programs in the presence of potential behavioral biases. We calibrate the key parameters using a randomized field experiment in which 30,000 elderly...

I estimate the effect of access to Food Stamps on criminal recidivism. In 1996, a federal welfare reform imposed a lifetime ban from Food Stamps on convicted drug felons. Florida modified this ban, restricting it to drug traffickers who commit their offense on or after August 23, 1996. I exploit...

Growing evidence suggests that pocketbook considerations influence voting behavior in the U.S. and other developed countries and that incumbents can use targeted government benefits to win voter support. It remains unclear whether the general relationship between government spending and...

This article examines whether expanding Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) eligibility reduces material hardships of low‐income households. During the Great Recession, many states expanded the income threshold of eligibility for SNAP. I show that expansions in eligibility...

We are the first to document that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) caseworker behavior impacts program receipt, likely due to differing levels of helpfulness in navigating the complicated application process. We use the conditional random assignment of caseworkers as an...

The Food Stamp Program (FSP) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) are important parts of national public assistance policy, with considerable overlap in the populations they serve. We use Social Security administrative data and the Food Stamp Quality Control samples for federal fiscal years...

Senior participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has traditionally been lower than other groups among those eligible, with historical estimates below 50 percent. We examine the impacts of state SNAP policies on program participation among low-income senior (age 60 and...

Traditional transfer programs in the United States provide few benefits to childless adults, so little is known about the effects of these policies on able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs). We examine a novel source of variation in the SNAP (Food Stamps) program, in which unemployed...