No abstract

While research establishing the link between high food prices and increased food insecurity in developing countries is robust, similar research about the United States has been lacking. This has been due in part to a lack of suitable price data, but it has also been due to the assumption that prices matter less in the United States, where households spend a relatively small fraction of their income on food. In this article we examine the role that local food prices play in determining food insecurity in the United States by using newly‐developed price data. We examine whether low‐income households participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly Food Stamps) are more likely to be food insecure in areas where food prices are higher. We find that the average effect of food prices on the probability of food insecurity is positive and significant: a one‐standard deviation increase in food prices is associated with increases of 2.7, 2.6, and 3.1 percentage points in household, adult, and child food insecurity, respectively. These marginal effects amount to 5.0%, 5.1%, and 12.4% increases in the prevalence of food insecurity for SNAP households, adults, and children, respectively. These results suggest that indexing SNAP benefits to local food prices could improve the ability of the program to reduce food insecurity and economic hardship more generally in areas with high food prices.

No abstract

We estimate the impact of involuntary unemployment following employer shutdowns during the COVID‐19 pandemic on American households' past‐week food expenditures, free food receipt, and food sufficiency, as well as confidence about next month's food adequacy. Over April to June 2020, compared with households containing employed respondents, households with respondents who lost their jobs due to coronavirus‐induced firm closures spent 15% less on food, were 36% more likely receive free food, were 10% less likely to have enough food to eat, and were 21% less likely to report at least moderate confidence in their future ability to afford needed foods. JEL CLASSIFICATION I12; J21; J63

Household food insecurity status in the United States is ascertained by a battery of close‐ended questions. We posit that the monthly nature of benefit receipt from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) creates experiences of food hardship, which become salient in the context of SNAP receipt, and in turn exert influence on the response to food security questions. We test this hypothesis by examining answers to a 30‐day food security module in relation to when SNAP benefits are received. We find that for SNAP households near the end of or at the beginning of the benefit month, the probability of being classified as food insecure increases by 11 percentage points, over a baseline of 42 percent. We also find that the probability of responding affirmatively to any of the first five items in the module increases during this time. We discuss the importance of these findings for the estimation of food security and its implication on program evaluation.