Snap and Paycheck Cycles
57 Pages Posted: 19 Mar 2019
Date Written: March 2019
Abstract
It is well documented that individuals do not spend SNAP benefits smoothly over the month after receipt. Rather, recipients spend a disproportionate share of benefits at the beginning of the benefit month. This has costs for recipients and stores. There is also evidence that other income streams, such as Social Security and paychecks, are not spent smoothly. The presence of these other income streams may bias estimates of the effects of this SNAP cycle on consumption for working SNAP beneficiaries and those who receive other government benefits. We use data from USDA’s National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey to explore how the SNAP cycle is affected by accounting for these other income streams. We find suggestive evidence that the cycle is more pronounced for workers who are paid on a weekly or monthly basis, but little evidence that cycles in other income streams mitigate or exacerbate the SNAP cycle.
Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Snap and Paycheck Cycles
This is a National Bureau of Economic Research Paper. NBER charges a fee of $5.00 for this paper.
File name: nber.pdf
Size: 0K
If you wish to purchase the right to make copies of this paper for distribution to others, please select the quantity.
