Suchergebnisse

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Department of Agriculture waived the certification interview for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), substantially reducing the administrative burden associated with SNAP application for both applicants and agencies. Using primary policy data collected from ten county-administered states, we find that only 27% of counties implemented the interview waiver. Further, models of local decision-making indicate that public health risk, demographic vulnerability and economic need, and political orientation in the county were not statistically significant predictors of waiver use. Finally, we find that the waiver choice did affect SNAP caseloads: using difference-in-difference models that make use of the natural experiment, we find that counties that adopted the SNAP interview waivers experienced a 5% increase in SNAP caseloads.

The literature on social capital and entrepreneurship often explores individual benefits of social capital, such as the role of personal networks in promoting self-employment. In this article, we instead examine social capital's public good aspects, arguing that the benefits of social trust and organization memberships accrue not just to the individual but to the community at large. We test these arguments using individual data from the 2000 Census that have been merged with two community surveys, the Social Capital Benchmark Survey and the General Social Survey. We find that individuals in communities with high levels of social trust are more likely to be self-employed compared to individuals in communities with lower levels of social trust. Additionally, membership in organizations connected to the larger community is associated with higher levels of self-employment, but membership in isolated organizations that lack connections to the larger community is associated with lower levels of self-employment. Further analysis suggests that the entrepreneurship-enhancing effects of community social capital are stronger for whites, native-born residents, and long-term community members than for minorities, immigrants, and recent entrants.

Despite decades of research, little is known about the contours of material hardship and how the social processes underlying specific domains of hardship are similar and different. We use qualitative interview data to examine five different domains of material hardship: housing, bill‐paying, food, medical, and clothing hardships. While mothers use social program participation, reliance on social networks, and individual strategies to mitigate hardships, the dominance of these strategies and their specific applications differ across hardship domains. These results complement recent research that identifies each domain of hardship as unique and suggest that domain‐specific hardship mitigation approaches are necessary.

AbstractUsing administrative records from Missouri, we investigate the characteristics of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants aged 60 and older who experience administrative churn. Among these adults, one in four experienced administrative churn, and one in five experienced more than one spell of churn. Risk of churn, frequency, duration of churn spells, and the value of foregone SNAP benefits varied with individual, household, and geographic characteristics, and was more common among non‐Whites, members of larger households, and those living in urban areas. Our findings suggest that a significant portion of older adults experience gaps in SNAP benefit receipt.

ObjectiveIn the United States, state social services rarely coordinate across departments, a practice that could both increase receipt and reduce administrative burden. The purpose of this article is to investigate the state‐level conditions associated with the adoption of policies that benefit participants in multiple social welfare programs, focusing on the case of the child support income exclusion for SNAP benefit eligibility calculations.MethodsUsing annual data for each of the states (including the District of Columbia), we estimate multiple analyses to test three hypotheses regarding which factors are associated with policy adoption.ResultsWe find that collaboration across social programs is more likely as state income tax revenues increase and when administrative costs are lower.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that state revenue and administrative costs are associated with state interagency alignment but find only weak evidence that political ideology is a factor.

The expansion of e-government is reshaping how disadvantaged groups access the social safety net, yet very little is known about clients' experiences with modernized systems. We examine client experiences applying to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program in one state that has recently moved to an "online-only" system. Overall, more than half of the 26 applicants stated a preference for the traditional caseworker model, even though some of them identified benefits to the modernized, online system. Based on respondents' experiences, we identified four points where the system proved problematic for applicants: (a) Accessing the call centers; (b) completing an eligibility interview; (c) using the paperless system to submit documentation; and (d) obtaining personal assistance to complete the application materials. Findings are relevant for state administrators of social safety net programs, e-government researchers in the public management and public administration fields, and social stratification researchers interested in how institutional processes influence patterns of inequality.