New Versus Return Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
During the Great Recession
Lloyd D. Grieger, Yale University
Background and Methodology
Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) climbed to historic
levels during and immediately following the Great Recession. During the recession, about 1 in 8
persons received SNAP benefits and by 2011 annual Federal spending on the program amounted
to $75.7 billion with over 44.7 million people in 21.1 million households receiving benefits in an
average month that year. Researchers know a great deal about participation rates and the
correlates of participation during the recession; however, it is unclear whether the recession-era
increases in SNAP participation represented an influx of new participants or a mass return by
former participants coinciding with the economic downturn. In addition, relatively basic facts
about the demographic profiles of new and return SNAP participants are unknown. This analysis
seeks to uncover: 1) the extent to which the Great Recession coaxed new versus return
participation in SNAP among adults and 2) how the demographic profiles of new and return
adult participants differ.
In order to differentiate between new and return adult SNAP users, one must have access to
information about individuals’ SNAP use over their entire adulthood. The Panel Study of Income
Dynamics (SNAP), the longest-running nationally representative source of panel data in the
United States, was employed for the analysis because it is the only data source with information
that spans a period long enough to track SNAP participation over the entirety of individuals’
adulthoods. The PSID was first administered to about 18,000 individuals in 1968 and original
panel members and their offspring were re-interviewed annually (biennially after 1997). As of
the 2011 wave, the PSID included information from over 70,000 individuals spanning 42 years.
SNAP participation is measured at the family level in each year of the panel. In each household,
the head and wife report the amount of income received from food stamps in the previous year.
After combining, if the value is non-zero all members of the family are considered to have been
program participants in that year. Individuals were considered to be Great Recession SNAP
participants if they lived in a family that received income from the program in 2008, 2009, or
2010. Individuals are included in the analytic sample if they are observed continuously (that is,
in each survey wave) from the year they become age 25 until 2010 and have non-missing values
on all other variables of interest. Continuous observation is required to ensure that SNAP
participation for the entire period of adulthood, which is considered to begin at age 25, is
observed. Thus, individuals may be observed for varying lengths of time – ranging from 43 years
for individuals who turned 25 in the first wave of the PSID, to 1 year for those who turned 25 in
the most recent wave. This yields an analytic sample of 7,680 individuals representing 98,143
person-years of information. Other important demographic measures were also harvested from
the PSID, including: age, gender, completed education, race/ethnicity, household configuration
(single or two-person household), household region (north central, northeast, west, south) and
household location (urban, suburban, rural). The measure of household location was derived
from a place-based spectrum/continuum very similar to the one employed by Office of
Management and Budget and the USDA Economic Research Service, and slightly different from
density-based measures employed by the U.S. Census.
Findings
Simple descriptive statistics about new and return SNAP participation revealed that over 2 in 5
Great Recession SNAP participants (42%) were first-time participants. This means that of the
roughly 12% of adults in the sample who lived in households receiving SNAP benefits during
2008-2010, just under half had never before lived in a SNAP household as an adult. The average
return recipient first participated in SNAP when they were 28.1 years old compared to 31.8 years
old for new participants, meaning that first-time participation was more compressed toward
younger ages for returners than for new participants. The fact that new SNAP usage among older
people appeared to be more common during the Great Recession is notable because other
research has shown that the likelihood of ever using SNAP conditional on no previous
participation (i.e. first time participation) declines substantially with age.
Multivariate statistical models were employed to explore the differences in the demographic
profiles of new and return adult SNAP participation. The analyses demonstrated that new SNAP
users during the Great Recession were very different from their return counterparts in ways that
do not fit mainstream conceptions of the typical SNAP participant. After controlling for
important observed characteristics, return participants were more likely than new participants to
be suburban (than rural or urban), white, highly educated, and older. This means that the massive
uptick in SNAP program participation during the Great Recession was not due solely to returners
recycling back onto the program and cohort replacement but was also because of new
participants from atypical demographic backgrounds.
Future analyses will compare the Great Recession period to other recent economic downturns in
order to determine if the patterns of new and return usage observed during the Great Recession
are unique.
Contact:
Lloyd Grieger
Department of Sociology
Yale University
P.O. Box 208265
New Haven, CT 06520-8265
Phone: 203-432-3313
E-mail: lloyd.grieger@yale.edu