We thank SafeGraph, Inc. for making their data available for research. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

In this paper, we study the effects of the timing of nutritional aid disbursement on crime, using two main sources of variation: (a) a policy change in Illinois that substantially increased the number of SNAP distribution days and (b) an existing Indiana policy that issues SNAP benefits by last name. We find that staggering SNAP benefits leads to large reductions in crime and theft at grocery stores by 17.5% and 20.9%, respectively. Findings also show that theft decreases in the second and third weeks following receipt but increases in the last week of the benefit cycle due to resource constraints.

We thank SafeGraph, Inc. for making their data available for research. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

No abstract

This paper exploits a policy change in Illinois that altered monthly nutritional assistance benefits dates to estimate the impact of in‐kind benefit receipt on domestic violence. We find that issuing SNAP benefits on days other than the first of the month increases domestic crimes. On average, we find the shifting benefit dates increases domestic abuse by 6.9 percent and child maltreatment by 30.0 percent. We posit that these effects are driven by increases in opportunities for conflict or changes in drug use.