Bundling Public and Charitable Supports to Cope with the Effects of the Great Recession*

Abstract

Objective. We examine how low-income households have drawn upon public and charitable nonprofit sources of social assistance during and after the Great Recession. Methods. Using panel survey data collected in the Detroit Metropolitan Area in 2008 and 2010, we explore the relationships between household characteristics, program use, and bundling of assistance. Results. Roughly twothirds of Detroit households within 300 percent of poverty received a public safety net benefit in the previous year; about 40 percent received assistance from more than one public program. More than one in six households received help from a nonprofit charity. Low educational attainment, unemployment, and health limitations are positively related to receipt of multiple public assistance programs. Conclusions. Our findings point to persistent needs among poor and near-poor households after the Great Recession, as well as to the reality that many low-income households draw upon multiple sources of public assistance even when working. Many low-income households remain detached from public and charitable sources of support even as the safety net has expanded in response to the downturn.

Examining Low-Income Single-Mother Families’ Experiences with Family Benefit Packages during and after the Great Recession in the United States

“…Our analysis shows that the most common packages bundle in-kind basic-needs benefits that address food, health, and housing needs. These programs' lack of conditionality on work and shared administration processes could explain the more sustainable support received from these basic needs programs than from cash or childcare programs (Allard et al 2015). Our results show that cash programs often supplemented inkind benefit packages in the US system, which is inconsistent with theoretical perspectives on family benefit packages that cash benefits function as primary resources (Seefeldt and Horowski 2012).…”

“…Lowincome families often piece together benefits from multiple programs to make ends meet (Seefeldt et al 2013). Social policy scholars have described this bundling as the creation of family benefit packages, which typically include cash benefits and in-kind goods and services (Allard et al 2015;Meyers 2007;Meyers et al 2001;Seefeldt and Sandstrom 2015). Theoretically, cash benefits are considered primary resources for low-income families because they directly supplement insufficient earnings due to unemployment or lowpaying jobs and have high flexibility because they can be spent on different needs.…”

Neighborhood Food Infrastructure and Food Security in Metropolitan Detroit

“…The spatial relationship between food resource access and household food security observed here might not be relevant to other settings. In particular, Detroit has a much longer experience of challenging economic conditions than most metro areas (Farley, Danziger, and Holzer ), and a persistently weak local economy has contributed to much higher levels of SNAP utilization than found nationally (Allard, Wathen, and Danziger ). In addition, given our data's geographic scope, we cannot compare our findings of urban and suburban food insecurity in the Detroit metro area with nearby rural food insecurity.…”

How do low-income single-mothers get by when unemployment strikes: Patterns of multiple program participation after transition from employment to unemployment

“…Evidence shows that many single mothers experiencing poverty (e.g., [ 9 ])—particularly those in households in which the single mother is unemployed [ 10 ]—received support from multiple safety net programs. However, little is known about the sequential patterns of multiple program participation among low-income, single-mother families after these mothers become unemployed.…”