Working Paper: NBER ID: w26025
Authors: Dean Jolliffe; Juan Margitic; Martin Ravallion
Abstract: The paper provides the first assessment of: (i) America’s progress in lifting the lower bound—the floor—of the distribution of real income; (ii) whether the country’s largest antipoverty program, SNAP (“food stamps”), helped do so. An operational method of estimating the floor is implemented on micro survey data spanning 30 years, with various robustness and significance tests. SNAP partially compensated the poorest, and helped stabilize the floor. Nonetheless, the floor has been sinking over the last 30 years. The efficiency of SNAP in lifting the floor has declined over time. Full coverage of the poorest would lift the floor appreciable.
Keywords: Food Stamps; Poverty; Income Distribution
JEL Codes: I32; I38
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| SNAP (H53) | Stabilizing the floor of real income for America's poorest (I32) |
| SNAP spending (H53) | floor of real income for America's poorest (I32) |
| Non-participation among eligible households (D19) | SNAP's effectiveness (I38) |
| Decline in SNAP's impact on the floor (H53) | lower participation rates (J49) |
| Rise in top incomes (D33) | floor for the poorest (I32) |