Safety Net Programs and Well-Being

This Award funds a research project that will study the interactions among several major government transfer programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women (WIG), Infants, and Children, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, that make up the majority of government safety net programs in the U.S. The researchers will study two important aspects of these programs; how best to administer them in order to improve targeting; and what impacts of these programs on a wide variety of important outcomes including, educational outcomes, employment and wages, and measures of health.

In addition to targeting, the research will study how interactions among these transfer programs improve the well-being of recipients. To do so, the researchers will link a large number of high-quality administrative data sets together. The results of this research will help decision makers improve the efficiency of transfer programs, cut cost, and improve the well-being of recipients.

It will also help to establish the US as a global leader in efficient provision of government transfer programs.

This Award funds a research project that will address two important questions regarding modern transfer programs in the US: (i) factors influencing program take-up and targeting and examines how these factors interact across different programs; (ii) explore the impact of transfer programs on participants' economic and other outcomes. The PIs will leverage recent rule changes in the U.S. that affect transaction costs and informational barriers in different frameworks.

To conduct this comprehensive analysis, the research utilizes large, linked administrative datasets encompassing several major safety net programs in the U.S. and those measuring important downstream outcomes such as education, employment and wages, health and economic well-being. The analysis of these downstream outcomes will offer valuable evidence to inform economic theory on the determinants of such outcomes and provide new cost-benefit and welfare estimates for major programs.

The results of this research will help decision makers improve the efficiency of transfer programs, cut cost, and improve the well-being of recipients. It will also help to establish the US as a global leader in efficient provision of government transfer programs.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.