Research

Children at the most risk of very low food security are more often being raised in immigrant families. While under a quarter of all children have immigrant parents, a disproportionate amount (40%) comprise the population of children living under the most severe conditions of food insecurity. Family structure is a key predictive factor among low-income families. Cildren living with a single parent or living in a more complex family are at an increased risk of low or very low food security, compared with children living in either a 100% biological family or a stepfamily. Notably, mother’s work patterns among low-income families are much stronger predictors of children’s food insecurity among stepfamilies than in 100% biological families. Other results suggest that disability among adults living with children greatly increases the likelihood of the more extreme form of child food insecurity. Children living with a disabled adult are almost three times more likely to live under conditions of very low food security, compared to children living in a household without a disabled adult.

The extent to which means-tested transfers, social insurance, and tax credits fill the gap between family’s private resources and the poverty threshold is a periodic barometer of the social safety net. Using data on families from the Current Population Survey I examine how the level and composition of before- and after-tax and after-transfer poverty gaps changed in response to changes in the policy and economic landscapes over the past two decades. The estimates presented here indicate not only dramatic changes in the level and sources of income maintenance programs filling the poverty gap, but also dramatic changes in which demographic groups successfully fill the gap. From the peak-to-peak business-cycle years of 1979 to 1999, the fraction of the gap left unfilled among non-elderly families in poverty has expanded by 25 percent, while the unfilled gap has increased by 50 percent among single female-headed families, families headed by non-whites, and families residing in the Northeast. In a given year the poor in the South fill considerably less of the poverty gap with cash assistance, but make up for much of the shortfall with higher payments of food stamps, SSI, and SSDI. Over time the poor in all regions of the country have substituted SSI, SSDI, and the EITC for cash welfare. Indeed, by 1999 the unfilled gap for families with related children present would be one-fifth larger without the EITC. With the exception of married-couple families, this apparent rate of replacement of disability payments and tax credits for cash assistance is less than one for one, leaving most poor families, especially non-white families and single female-headed families, financially more vulnerable today than in previous decades.

I compare the extent of food hardships in the United States among all adults, and separately for seniors, in the two decades before and during the onset of the Covid-19 Pandemic. The data come from the 2001-2019 December Supplements of the Current Population Survey, as well as the newly released Census Household Pulse Survey. The results indicate that food insufficiency among all adults increased three-fold during the Covid period compared to 2019, and more than double that observed during the Great Recession. Over 1 in 5 Black adults were food insufficient in mid 2020, a rate double that of white adults. Food insufficiency among seniors increased 75 percent during the Covid period, but when broadening the definition to also include reduced variety of foods, the share of seniors food insufficient also more than doubled compared to 2019 and the Great Recession. Receipt of charitable foods among disadvantaged adults spiked over 50 percent in the Covid period, but the initial response among seniors was a sharp reduction, before rising. These patterns, which hold in richly specified regression models, are consistent with strong shelter-in-place and other social distancing measures enacted at the state and local levels in response to the Pandemic that were gradually relaxed over time.

Very low food security among young children is associated with developmental deficiencies. However, little is known about the factors that predict entry into or exit from very low food security during early childhood. This study seeks to, 1) Understand the triggers that explain movements into or out of very low food security among children from birth to age five; and, 2) Examine the first aim using different definitions of food insecurity. The analysis relies on the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), a longitudinal, nationally representative dataset of approximately 10,700 children, to estimate linear probability models. Results suggest that residential moves and declines in maternal or child health are associated with transitioning into food insecurity, whereas increases in the number of adults in the household are associated with exits from food insecurity. Changes in income and maternal depression are associated with both entrances and exits. These findings are robust to different definitions of food insecurity and model specifications. Findings can help nutrition assistance programs target parents and their children for assistance and information on coping strategies when they are most at risk of experiencing food insecurity.

Reducing hunger risk among older Americans requires a concerted policy effort that is informed by rigorous research on the extent, causes, and consequences of food insecurity. In this report we provide a comprehensive portrait of the causes and consequences of food insecurity among adults age 50-59 in comparison to those in their 40s and those 60 and older. We emphasize the 50-59 age cohort in part because they do not have access to an age-specific safety net like older Americans (or some younger ones), take-up rates in food assistance programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program) are low, and the scaring effects of job loss can be more severe. We complement our age-specific analyses by examining the full samples of adults age 40 and older, those adults age 50 and older, and the subsamples with family incomes below 200% and below 300% of the poverty line.

Housing wealth is the primary source of wealth for many older adults, particularly those with lower incomes, who are more at risk of severe forms of economic hardship such as food insecurity. For housing wealth to directly improve food insecurity, it first must be liquefied. Understanding the role of housing wealth requires careful consideration of home equity and mortgage borrowing. A primary contribution of our report is to model the financial mechanisms through which housing wealth and its components—home value, home equity, and mortgage debt—affect food insecurity in older age. We use panel data on households from the Health and Retirement Study and instrumental variable linear probability models with household fixed-effects to assess the effects of new mortgage borrowing on food insecurity (N=20,421 household-years). Trend analyses reveal that food insecurity increased from the 2008 recession until 2014 and that new mortgage borrowing peaked prior to the recession. The proportion of older homeowners facing credit constraints is highest for those age 65 to 69 in all years. Regression results show that mortgage borrowing has a substantial short-term negative effect on food insecurity. Each additional $10,000 borrowed is associated with reduction of food insecurity of 2.2 percentage points. The effect of new mortgage borrowing on food insecurity is distinct from changes in house prices or changes in home equity, neither of which are statistically significant factors. In a simulation of the effects of relaxing the debt-to-income borrowing constraint, we find that food insecurity is reduced by 2.1 percentage points for previous non-borrowers and by 1.6 percentage points for borrowers. Results support the importance of access to mortgage borrowing to reduce material hardship in older age.

The goals of this program of research are to estimate (1) the sociodemographic predictors of food insufficiency among seniors ages 60 and older and (2) the causal impacts of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid on food insecurity and/or insufficiency among seniors. I use data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), Current Population Survey (CPS), National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and American Community Survey (ACS). Analyses using HRS data show that, consistent with earlier studies, age, income, work status, disability, education, and race/ethnicity are all significant determinants of food insufficiency; neuroticism is also a significant predictor of food insufficiency. Exploiting the Social Security “notch” in benefits that resulted in lower payments to individuals born just after January 1, 1917 compared with those born just before, I find using HRS data from 1995 that lower income is associated with higher food insufficiency and SNAP use, but these results are imprecisely estimated. Next, using NHIS and HRS data from multiple years, I find no evidence that becoming age-eligible for Medicare at age 65 reduces food insecurity. Finally, a difference-in-difference analysis of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion using ACS and CPS data shows that despite significant increases in Medicaid among seniors in states that implemented expansion compared with those that did not, food insecurity among seniors did not decline. These results suggest that public health insurance does not reduce food insecurity among seniors, perhaps because this benefit is not fungible.

This project explores the correlates of geographic and temporal variation in food security using data from the 2008 to 2018 Current Population Survey’s Food Security Supplements.  The focus is on the relationship between State-level availability and accessibility of congregate and home-delivered meal programs, as well as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Senior Farmer’s Market Nutrition Program(SFMNP) and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program(CSFP) on food security among lower-income households headed by older adults (ages 60 and up).  Results show some evidence that a State-level food security infrastructure plays a role in the food security outcomes of households headed by older adults.

Our paper examines the prevalence and determinants of children’s transitions into and out of food insecurity since 2001. We use longitudinally linked data from the Food Security Supplements to the Current Population Surveys to estimate one-year transition probabilities of entry and exit from food insecurity. Our results indicate that child hunger is typically short-lived, but children experiencing very low food security frequently experience multiple consecutive years of food insecurity. We demonstrate large demographic and socioeconomic differences in rates of entry into very low food security and persistence in children's food insecurity. Income and employment shocks are important predictors of child hunger transitions. Finally, we find that the Great Recession increased the likelihood that children entered into and persisted in food insecurity among children.

Food insecurity, defined as a household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food, is a substantial threat to public health in the United States. In 2017, nearly 12% of households reported being food insecure, affecting over 40 million persons.  Numerous studies have documented that food insecurity is associated with substantive negative health outcomes among children and families, and leads to excessive health care expenditures.  In this paper we compare the levels, trends, and determinants of food insecurity in the University of Michigan’s Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to those from the official source of food security statistics in the U.S.—the Food Security Supplement of the Current Population Survey—from 1999-2017. The PSID, which was begun in 1968, is the leading longitudinal household survey on work, welfare, family structure, consumption, health, and wealth. The survey added measures of food security in the 1999-2003 waves, and again in the 2015-2017 waves. This offers the first opportunity to answer key pressing scientific and policy issues such as the persistence of food insecurity within and across generations, and how changes in food security affect and are affected by the level and change in consumption, wealth, and broader measures of health. This paper aims to describe how well levels and trends in food insecurity in the PSID align with the CPS, and the sources of why they might differ. In addition, we examine the robustness of key model predictors of food insecurity—income, race, education, disability status, marital status—across the surveys. We find that, although the estimated food insecurity rates in the PSID are lower than those in the CPS, the trends over time in the two datasets are similar. Food insecurity rates in the PSID and CPS converge from the 1998-2002 period to the 2014-16 period when food insecurity rates closely match those in the CPS. Our findings, taken as a whole, lend credence to the use of the PSID for food insecurity research.

In April 2012 the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) in the U.S. Department of Agriculture embarked on an ambitious new data collection enterprise known as the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS). FoodAPS is innovative in that it is the first nationally representative household survey to collect comprehensive data on household food expenditures and acquisitions, including those obtained using benefits from food assistance programs. The survey includes data from 4,826 households, including Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) households, low-income eligible households not participating in SNAP, and higher income households. This report summarizes findings from research projects using FoodAPS data. These projects were managed by UKCPR through a grant funded by the USDA's Economic Research Service.

We investigate the intersection of family size, food security, and the efficacy of public benefits, especially with respect to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Food security literature pays scant attention to the role of number of children in a household – an important dimension for understanding family resource and food assistance adequacy in the context of child well-being. We exploit longitudinal food security data within the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to explore how food security status and family resources change when families change in size, particularly with the addition of children. Gundersen et al. (2018) flagged large families as a group for consideration in any future SNAP reform, which motivates the need for evidence on the dynamics of family size, program benefits, and child food security. We focus on the subsample of SNAP recipients to address the question of how well program benefits meet the needs of families of varying sizes, as defined by a geographically price-adjusted Thrifty Food Plan, as well as how an additional family member, or child, affects the probability of being food insecure and how family size intersects with the likelihood of being extramarginal (no food spending beyond SNAP assistance), the size of the average food resource gap between spending and needs, and the adequacy of SNAP benefits in meeting food needs. Our findings provide key insight on the responsiveness of food assistance programs to changes in family composition and needs. Importantly, this study supports future research and policy design with respect to child well-being in larger families.

This paper introduces a new measure, the probability of food security (PFS), to study food security dynamics in the United States. PFS represents the estimated probability that a household's food expenditures equal or exceed the minimum cost of a healthful diet, as reflected in the United States Department of Agriculture's Thrifty Food Plan monthly cost estimates. PFS matches the official food security prevalence measure in a given period but enables richer study of the dynamics and severity of food insecurity. Applied to 2001-17 data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we find that roughly half of households that become newly food insecure resume food security within two years. But the positive association of persistence with prior food insecurity means that half to two-thirds of food insecure households at any given time remain food insecure at least two years later. PFS varies dramatically with income and demographic characteristics, such that inter-group prevalence and severity measures differ by one or two orders of magnitude. Households headed by non-White women with low educational attainment disproportionately suffer persistent, chronic food insecurity, while White-headed households without a college degree account for most of the business cycle-associated variation in national food insecurity.

The potentially complex relationships between senior hunger and the constellation of lifetime social, economic, and health statuses are not well understood, or even described. The primary purpose of this study is to assess patterns and associations among lifetime experiences of social, economic, food, and health hardship for food insecure seniors. A central feature of our work is the incorporation of a life stories approach in addition to longitudinal surveys. From June 2020- February 2021, we collected life history interviews from 107 participants. We conducted bimonthly follow-up interviews starting in August 2020 (continuing until March 2022). Interview guides for life histories and follow-up interviews included open-ended questions and survey style assessments, including the USDA Household Food Security Survey Module, the Survey of Income and Program Participation Adult Well-being Module, the WHO Quality of Life instrument, and the Mental Health Inventory 18. We conducted inductive analysis and content analysis of all qualitative data and estimated descriptive statistics of all quantitative data. Our primary themes for qualitative analysis relate to history of food insecurity, economic insecurity, and household health challenges. Additionally, the following themes emerged from our inductive analysis: violence, sexual and physical; traumatic events; racism, individual and systemic; perceptions of age discrimination; early experiences of sharecropping or leased land; and home gardens. The life course narratives reflect a complex experience of food and other material hardships throughout the lifetime, yet thus far in our analysis, previous experiences of food insecurity, particularly in middle age, have been the most notable predictor variable for senior hunger.

We study whether SNAP mediates the effect of food insecurity on future health and healthcare utilization more for the extreme poor (i.e., those with income below 50% of the poverty line) than it mediates the effect for other low-income families (i.e., with incomes between 50% and 200% of the poverty line). We use data for about 23,000 people in the 2011-2012, 2012-2013, and 2013-2014 linked NHIS-MEPS surveys with the measures of food insecurity coming from the NHIS and the measures of SNAP benefits and various health outcomes from the MEPS. We find that SNAP significantly reduces the negative effects of food insecurity on several measures of health and healthcare-related outcomes for nonelderly adults, and that this reduction is often significantly greater for those in extreme poverty. However, we find no significant effects of this type for children. In addition, attempts to control for possible endogeneity of the SNAP effect of interest are unsuccessful because of a lack of strong instruments. Nevertheless, endogeneity of the effect of interest maybe biased downward, strengthening the support of the OLS estimates as valid.

We estimate a model of food stamp program participation allowing for differences between refugees and immigrants. The model examines pre and post reform participation. It further isolates the effect of local labor markets. Using auxiliary information from the INS’ Statistical Yearbooks we are able to identify the impact refugee status has on participation. We demonstrate that regressions using ad hoc variables are subject to severe measurement error bias. We also correct for measurement error in the report of food stamp participation. The model estimates demonstrate the importance of both corrections. Our results demonstrate that failing to separate refugees from immigrants substantially biases the coefficient on immigrants.

Policymakers are pursing initiatives to increase food access for low-income households. However, due in part to previous data deficiencies, there is still little evidence supporting the assumption that improved food store access will alter dietary habits, especially for the poorest of U.S. households. This article uses the new National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS) to estimate consumer food outlet choices as a function of outlet type and household attributes in a multinomial mixed logit. In particular, we allow for the composition of the local retail food environment to play a role in explaining household store choice decisions and food acquisition patterns. We find that (1) households are willing to pay more per week in distance traveled to shop at superstores, supermarkets, and fast food outlets than at farmers markets and smaller grocery stores, and (2) willingness to pay is heterogeneous across income group, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participation, and other household and food environment characteristics. Our results imply that policymakers should consider incentivizing the building of certain outlet types over others, and that Healthy Food Financing Initiatives should be designed to fit the sociodemographic composition of each identified low-income, low-access area in question.

An extensive literature debates the causes and consequences of the desegregation of American schools in the twentieth century. Despite the social importance of desegregation and the magnitude of the literature, we have lacked a comprehensive accounting of the basic facts of school desegregation. This paper uses newly assembled data to document when and how Southern school districts desegregated, as well as the extent of court involvement in the desegregation process over the two full decades after Brown vs. Board of Education. We also examine heterogeneity in the path to desegregation by district characteristics. The results suggest that the existing quantitative literature, which generally either begins in 1968 and focuses on the role of federal courts in larger urban districts or relies on highly aggregated data, often tells an incomplete story of desegregation.