Project: Restructuring Food Stamps To Help Working Families
Award Year: 1999
Amount of award, fiscal 1999: $50,000.00
Institution: The Urban Institute
Principal Investigator: Robert Lerman
Status: Completed
Detailed Objective: This work examines ways in which the Food Stamp Program might operate more effectively to supplement the incomes of working low-income families. The work will draw on existing studies, analyze data from the National Survey of America's Families and the Survey of Income and Program Participation, examine field data on administrative procedures at the local level, and review program rules and regulations for the Food Stamp Program. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 dramatically changed the ways in which Federal and State Governments provide assistance to low-income families. As a result, the Food Stamp Program plays several roles in this evolving system of support:
  • a nutrition-oriented in-kind benefit for low-income families;
  • a way of encouraging the unemployed poor to enter the labor force and take a job;
  • a support for families that experience loss of earnings substantial enough to render them eligible for assistance.

Current administrative practices and procedures in the Food Stamp Program may not be well-suited to supporting all roles simultaneously. A grant was awarded to The Urban Institute at a cost of $50,000 in fiscal 1999. The project is expected to be completed by the end of December 2001.

Topic: Program Operations, SNAP/Food Stamp Program
Dataset: Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP)
Output:
Lerman, R., and M. Wiseman. Restructuring Food Stamps for Working Families, The Urban Institute, August 26, 2002.