Full Citation
Title: Evaluating the Effects of a Finger-Imaging Requirement for SNAP Eligibility on Food Stamp Participation and Food Security
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2015
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Abstract: The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), previously known as the Food Stamp Program, provides a crucial resource for impoverished households in increasing purchasing power and food security. Fraud presents a large cost concern to the program, and the federal government mandates that the states must maintain a system that prevents duplicate or ineligible participants from receiving benefits. To satisfy this requirement, four states (Arizona, California, New York, and Texas) required applicants to submit to a finger-imaging requirement to receive benefits at different times in the last two decades. However, a large opposition to finger-imaging appeared, claiming it decreased SNAP participation by increasing the costs in time, money, stigma, and inconvenience of applying for benefits, and every state save Arizona repealed the requirement. I exploit the variation in timing by state with a difference in difference framework to examine the impact of this eligibility requirement on SNAP participation and food insecurity. I find the requirement decreases SNAP participation by 1.3 and 1.5 percentage points for individuals at or below 200% and 130% of the poverty threshold, respectively, and the effect intensifies for whites (non-Hispanic), children, and single mothers. Food insecurity increases for white mothers below 185% of the poverty line and white children of all incomes and below 185% of the poverty line. However, a finger-imaging requirement improves SNAP participation and food security for Hispanics and has no effect for blacks (non-Hispanic), suggesting that the increased costs associated with finger-imaging are equaled or exceeded by the benefit of reducing discrimination from SNAP officers by confirming one's legal US residence and freedom from felony drug convictions. Pietrini 3
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Authors: Pietrini, Nick
Publisher: University of Notre Dame
Data Collections: IPUMS CPS
Topics: Health, Natural Resource Management
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