• examining the characteristics of the welfare assistance packages being developed at the State level and assessing the impact they may have on Federal food assistance program participation rates and expenditures;
• examining the post-Temporary Assistance for Needy Families relationship between national and State-level macroeconomic conditions and FSP participation and benefit levels; and
• linking an operational microsimulation model to an economy-wide model for analysis of the FSP and its relation to other welfare programs and the general economy.

The work will use a microsimulation model developed to simulate household responses to changes in FSP, welfare, and child care policy. The work will address the following three tasks:

• how will changes in State TANF programs and State child care programs affect State FSP participation and benefits;
• how have changes in State unemployment rates affected State FSP participation and benefits during the 1990s, and how will these effects differ as State TANF programs vary in the future; and
• how can the simulation model be linked to the Economic Research Service's Computable General Equilibrium model of the agricultural sector and the economy at large.

Simulations from the microsimulation model, under task 1 and 2 of this project, provide one basis for assessing the relative impact of changes in State unemployment rates and State welfare programs on the Food Stamp Program caseload and benefits. A cooperative assistance agreement was awarded to Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., (MPR) for $374,229 in fiscal 1998 to study the consequences of welfare reform and economic change for the FSP and the economy as a whole The work is expected to be completed by September, 2001.