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ObjectiveTo systematically review the potential impact of reducing the set of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)-eligible foods (e.g. not allowing purchase of sugar-sweetened beverages with SNAP benefits) on expenditures for restricted foods.DesignThe impact on food expenditures of a $US 1 reduction in available SNAP benefits can be used to estimate the impact of restrictions on SNAP-eligible foods. An electronic search of EconPapers, AgEcon Search, EconLit, WorldCat, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, PubMed and NALDC, and a snowball search were conducted to obtain a sample of studies up to March 2015 that estimate the impacts of SNAP and other income on household food expenditures. The studies were classified according to study population, study design and whether they attempted to correct for major study design biases.SettingEstimates were extracted from fifty-nine published and unpublished studies.SubjectsUS households.ResultsFifty-nine studies were found, yielding 123 estimates of the impact of SNAP benefits on food expenditures and 117 estimates of the difference in impacts between SNAP benefits and other income. Studies correcting for or mitigating study design biases had less estimate variation. Estimates indicate that expenditures on the restricted item would decrease by $US 1·6 to $US 4·8 if $US 10 of SNAP benefits would have otherwise been spent, with a median overall impact of $US 3.ConclusionsThe present literature suggests that restrictions on SNAP-eligible items may result in a small but potentially meaningful decrease in SNAP expenditures for restricted items. Further research is needed to evaluate whether this would translate into improvements in diet quality.

Administrative burdens in government programs are common and may exacerbate inequity in government service provision and access. Work requirements represent an onerous administrative burden as they entail substantial effort in complying and documenting compliance. We investigate whether state politics and race influence local Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) work requirement restrictiveness. To measure restrictiveness, we leverage the fact that states can apply for waivers of the SNAP work requirement during times of high unemployment. Using a novel dataset of county waivers from 2005 to 2018, we investigate whether state politics or county racial composition predict the likelihood a county has work requirements waived, conditional on unemployment. We find that counties in Republican‐controlled states and counties with higher percentages of Black populations are less likely to be waived. Counties with higher Black percentages are less likely to be waived if they are located in Republican‐controlled states. These results highlight the need for greater transparency in waiver implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses Nielsen Homescan data from 2014 to 2019 to investigate consumer spending on plant‐based meat alternative (PBMA) products. First, we measure determinants of different PBMA spending levels and summarize spending on PBMA and other food products. We then examine spending over time on PBMA and other food items when a household first purchases a PBMA product. A household spends USD 8 on PBMA products in the first month it purchases PBMA. PBMA spending, however, drops by over 75% in the months following this initial purchase. Spending on meat does not decrease in the first month these households purchase PBMA, though spending on dairy, deli, and dry grocery products does drop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We measure how Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants respond to policies designed to improve access to retail food store formats that stock healthy foods, specifically grocery stores. Supply‐side policies seek to increase the supply of grocery stores by subsidizing store openings. Demand‐side policies seek to increase the demand for food from grocery stores by, for example, increasing benefits. Unique SNAP administrative data allow us to estimate and compare impacts of grocery store openings and a SNAP benefit increase at a fine geographic scale. We find both policies increase shopping at grocery stores relative to other store formats but observe substantive impacts for grocery store openings only among households in very close proximity to the opening. Furthermore, we find that the impacts are mediated by car ownership and food desert status. In particular, households without cars in food deserts exhibit the largest impact. Grocery store openings decrease SNAP spending shares primarily at ethnic stores, whereas benefit increases decrease SNAP spending shares at convenience stores. Neither policy decreases total SNAP spending at convenience stores. The spillover effects on shopping at other store formats therefore make the potential effect on access to healthy food ambiguous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the effect of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) work requirements on work effort for a particularly disadvantaged subgroup of potential SNAP participants. Individuals age out of SNAP work requirements at age fifty and requirements are occasionally waived in certain areas. We leverage this policy variation in a regression discontinuity research design and find that, for adults with low income and low education, aging out of work requirements decreases employment, hours worked, and the probability of working over twenty hours per week only when requirements are in effect. This drop in work effort is not apparent among low‐income adults in general and is driven by individuals leaving the labor force because they report being unable to work or because they retire. The drop is smaller when states do not provide qualifying work opportunities. Overall, although we find meaningful effects consistent with theory for a subset of low‐income adults, it is not clear that the overall number affected is sufficiently large to translate to noticeable labor market effects among low‐income adults without dependents in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poor mental health functioning among persons living with HIV (PLHIV) has gained considerable attention particularly in low-income countries that disproportionately carry the global HIV/AIDS burden. Fewer studies, however, have examined the relationship between poverty indicators and mental health among PHLIV in India. Based on this cross-sectional study of 196 HIV-seropositive adults who received medical services at Shalom AIDS Project in Delhi, India, structural equation modeling and mediation analysis were employed to estimate the associations between poverty indices (household asset index, food security, unemployment, water treatment, sanitation), HIV-health factors (illness in the past 3 months, co-morbid medical conditions), and psychological distress. In the final model, ownership of fewer household assets was associated with higher levels of food insecurity, which in turn was associated with higher psychological distress. Also, the household asset index, food insecurity, and unemployment had a larger effect on psychological distress than new opportunistic infections. These findings build on increasing evidence that support concerted efforts to design, evaluate, and refine HIV mental health interventions that are mainstreamed with livelihood programming in high poverty regions in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As I read Cramer, Paudel, and Schmitz's single-volume I Handbook of Agricultural Economics i (Cramer et al.,), I was constantly reminded of the statement attributed to Jacob Viner: "Economics is what economists do" (Backhouse and Medema,). Although it might be hard to classify and categorize, Cramer, Paudel, and Schmitz have done an excellent job of putting together an overview of what agricultural economists do. The I Handbook i also includes less material than one might wish on the important work by agricultural economists on household and labor economics or on microeconomic topics in development. [Extracted from the article]

Objective: To estimate how incentives that encourage healthy eating among Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants impact intra-monthly variation in fruit and vegetable spending., Design: We used transaction data from three Alabama grocery stores participating in a programme that offered dollar-matching coupons for fresh produce. For each store, we calculated daily spending on fresh produce out of SNAP benefits and daily incentive coupon redemptions. We compared total daily spending on fresh produce and daily coupon redemptions on days over which SNAP benefits are distributed in Alabama with spending and redemption on days at the end of the month with no SNAP distribution., Setting: SNAP and incentive transactions in three Alabama grocery stores., Participants: SNAP participants purchasing fruit and vegetables April 2023-July 2023., Results: Daily spending with SNAP on produce dropped by 38% at the end of the month. Incentive coupon redemption did not significantly drop at the end of the month. The share of total SNAP spending going to fresh fruits and vegetables increased by two percentage points and the share of fresh fruits and vegetables spending coming from redemptions increased by ten percentage points at the end of the month., Conclusions: SNAP households may use incentive coupons to smooth drops in produce consumption at the end of the month. These findings also highlight trade-offs inherent in different delivery mechanisms for SNAP incentives.