When States Align Social Welfare Programs: Considering the Child Support Income Exclusion for SNAP

Abstract

Objective. In the United States, state social services rarely coordinate across departments, a practice that could both increase receipt and reduce administrative burden. The purpose of this article is to investigate the state-level conditions associated with the adoption of policies that benefit participants in multiple social welfare programs, focusing on the case of the child support income exclusion for SNAP benefit eligibility calculations. Methods. Using annual data for each of the states (including the District of Columbia), we estimate multiple analyses to test three hypotheses regarding which factors are associated with policy adoption. Results. We find that collaboration across social programs is more likely as state income tax revenues increase and when administrative costs are lower. Conclusions. Our findings suggest that state revenue and administrative costs are associated with state interagency alignment but find only weak evidence that political ideology is a factor. The government-provided social safety net in the United States is a complex web of programs that supply both cash and in-kind benefits to low-income families. Different components of the system were created at different points in time, and are managed by multiple local, state, and federal agencies. As a result, there are holes and overlap in the structure of the safety net, resulting in both unmet needs and redundancy. Frequently, low-income families suffer from this system with large time-costs waiting for caseworker approval and a heavy paperwork burden. Further, the rules are complex and it is difficult to know the benefits for which one qualifies. The end result often is an underutilization of programs both through a lack of awareness and considerable caseload churn (Herd and Moynihan, 2018). Additionally, social programs that were designed to meet the needs of the caseload at the time they were enacted have been slow to respond to the demographic shifts in family complexity, such as growth in the number of births to unmarried parents, multipartnered fertility, and the high prevalence of divorce and remarriage (Carlson and Meyer, 2014). Given the intricacies of our current social policy environment, we seek to understand the factors that lead to interagency coordination between social welfare programs to increase

Local Control, Discretion, and Administrative Burden: SNAP Interview Waivers and Caseloads During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…These results are consistent with research by Heflin et al (2020) in their examination of predictors of SNAP policies that would increase eligibility for noncustodial parents paying child support. In that study, which explored the state-level decision to treat child support paid more favorable for SNAP benefit determination over 2001–2017, they found that the state decision was not related to political ideology or economic conditions at the state level.…”