After controlling for self-selection bias, participation in the WIC program (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) has a significant positive effect on children's intakes of iron, folate, and vitamin B-6. Iron is one of the five nutrients targeted by the...

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) dramatically transformed and continues to transform the food assistance landscape in the United States. The Act cut more funds from the Food Stamp Program than it did from any other program, through reductions...

Empirical studies have shown that food stamp participants spend a higher proportion of their benefit on food than they would with an equivalent amount of cash. Our study demonstrates that this result can be explained by the decision-making behavior of multi-adult households. Multi-adult...

In 2000, 8.8 million children received food stamps, making the Food Stamp Program a crucial component of the social safety net. Despite its importance, little research has examined the effect of food stamps on children's overall well-being. Using the Current Population Survey from 1989 to 2001,...

Each school day, millions of U.S. children receive free or reduced-price meals provided through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). Recent studies have indicated that many students who are not eligible for free or reduced-price NSLP meals are receiving the meals. How large is this...

The ability of food stamps to ameliorate food insufficiency in the U.S. is estimated with self-selection models which incorporate the systematic differences between eligible food stamp participants and non-participants. The analysis is performed with a sample of eligible households from the 1992...

The macroeconomy and social policies can have substantial influences on poverty in the United States. In this paper, I investigate whether these influences differ across metro and nonmetro areas. To do so, using a 16-year panel of state-level data, I estimate state and year fixed effects models...