Programs using means tests to identify low-income households face a trade-off between promoting access and ensuring program integrity. In the case of the National School Lunch Program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently implemented a pilot program to improve the accuracy of the process...

Describes a study design permitting a scientifically defensible evaluation of the impact of the School Breakfast Program on learning and cognitive development among children. Reviews the literature and presents a conceptual framework of the SBP-learning relationship, and then proposes and...

Examines low-income individuals' dietary knowledge and attitudes, describes their dietary intake, and estimates the relationship between food stamp participation and dietary intake. Finds room for improvement in dietary knowledge and dietary intake. Also notes that food stamp participation is...

This new four-page issue brief details two approaches to ensuring that free and reduced-price school meals go to eligible families. The brief finds that direct certification is useful in improving program access, although it could reach more eligible households. However, a pilot program that...

This study for the USDA Food and Nutrition Service was conducted to determine existing measures for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program modernization initiatives, including call centers, online systems, document imaging, kiosks, partnering, waiving the face-to-face interview, shortened...

Over the years, concern has mounted that many of the more than 26 million children certified to receive free or reduced-price meals may be ineligible for these benefits. This brief looks at the issue of reducing payment errors in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the School Breakfast...

Available from Food and Nutrition Service, Office of Analysis and Evaluation, Room 214, 3101 Park Center Drive, Alexandria, VA 22302. (703) 305-2133.

In light of sharp declines in the Food Stamp Program caseload, examines the well-being of those who have left the program. Notes that about half of those who exited in 1997 were employed two years later, while more than half had incomes below the poverty line. Also notes food insecurity with...