Program Recertification Costs: Evidence from SNAP

Abstract

Recipients of means-tested program benefits must periodically document continued eligibility through a recertification process. We find evidence that the administrative burden associated with SNAP recertification leads to decreases in program participation. Cases assigned to later recertification interview dates, which leave less time to reschedule missed interviews, are over 20 percent less likely to recertify than cases assigned to interviews earlier in the month. Cases that fail recertification due to later assignments lose an average of $600 in benefits in the following year. These losses are highly skewed: many cases quickly re-enroll, while one quarter remain off SNAP for over a year post-recertification.

Employed in a SNAP? The Impact of Work Requirements on Program Participation and Labor Supply

“…Our results also contribute to the literature on screening in means-tested programs, which Nichols and Zeckhauser (1982) and Besley and Coate (1992) highlight as a policy tool to increase targeting efficiency. A recent literature empirically studies the role of screening by enrollment and recertification processes in Medicaid, SNAP, and disability programs (Deshpande and Li 2019, Finkelstein and Notowidigdo 2019, Gray 2019, Homonoff and Somerville 2019. Our finding of disproportionate program exit among the homeless and individuals without pre-SNAP income provides new insights on the screening effects of work requirements, in particular.…”

“…To keep track of income and deductions, participants in most states are required to submit periodic "recertifications," typically at 6-month or 12-month intervals. Recertifications require substantial paperwork, including documentation of deductions and earnings (e.g., medical bills or pay stubs), and the majority of attrition from the SNAP program happens at these deadlines (Hastings and Shapiro 2018, Gray 2019, Homonoff and Somerville 2019.…”

The Effects of Welfare Time Limits on Access to Financial Resources: Evidence from the 2010s.

“…I also restrict the sample to those with less than $80,000 in earnings to remove outliers from the data. (Currie and Grogger 2001;Ziliak, Gundersen, and Figlio 2003;Ribar, Edelhoch, and Liu 2008;Homonoff and Somerville 2020), so stricter TANF time-limit policies likely disconnect households from SNAP, decreasing their access to financial resources.…”

Out of the Woodwork: Enrollment Spillovers in the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment

“…In the specific context of Medicaid, the ability of eligible individuals to wait and enroll when needed -so called conditional coverage -is another potential factor contributing to incomplete formal enrollment at any given point in time (Cutler and Gruber, 1996). Recent work has identified informational and transactional barriers to take up for Medicaid (Aizer, 2003;Wright et al, 2017), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Finkelstein and Notowidigdo, 2019;Homonoff and Somerville, 2019), the Earned Income Tax Credit (Bhargava and Manoli, 2015), and Disability Insurance (Deshpande and Li, 2019). Our empirical finding of a contemporaneous increase in adult and child enrollment due to winning the lottery is likewise consistent with both limited information on eligibility and the transaction costs of enrolling as barriers to children's Medicaid take up.…”