| Detailed Objective: This project examines the effects of housing costs on food consumption for
low-income households. The tradeoff that low-income households make between
housing, which accounts for the largest share of their budget, and food consumption
has received little research attention. Food Stamp Program regulations adjust
benefits for excess housing costs. The study will merge data on local housing
market conditions with data from the 1998 Current Population Survey's Food Security
Supplement to examine for low-income households how housing affordability affects
two outcome variables: food expenditures and food security. The project will
focus on both food expenditures and food security as dependent variables that
may be affected by housing costs.
The Food Stamp Program regulations account for the tradeoff between housing
and food costs through the excess shelter deduction, which provides greater
food stamp benefit levels for households with higher housing costs. The study
will consider the effectiveness of the excess shelter deduction. It will also
examine variations in food stamp take-up rates that are associated with the
characteristics of housing markets across the country. The researchers will
create a unique data set that contains information on local housing market conditions
from the American Chamber of Commerce Research Association cost-of-living indices,
the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Fair Market Rents data,
and the 1995 Assisted Housing database, and will merge this with the data from
the 1998 CPS Food Security Supplement.
The researchers will use descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis to
examine how the variation in housing costs is associated with food expenditures
and food security. This information will provide valuable information on the
potentially negative repercussions of housing costs on food consumption and
the effectiveness of the excess shelter deduction in addressing this problem.
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