SNAP and Paycheck Cycles

Timothy Beatty, Marianne Bitler, Xinzhe Huang Cheng and Cynthia van der Werf

No 25635, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

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.

JEL-codes: H53 I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-lab
Note: PE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published as Timothy K. M. Beatty & Marianne P. Bitler & Xinzhe Huang Cheng & Cynthia van der Werf, 2019. "SNAP and Paycheck Cycles," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(1), pages 18-48, July.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w25635.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: SNAP and Paycheck Cycles (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25635

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w25635

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().