| Detailed Objective: Many legal immigrants who formerly received food stamps were made ineligible to receive them in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation
Act of 1996; subsequent legislation restored some eligibility, but most immigrant
adults of working age are still ineligible. This is a 3-year study conducted by
The Urban Institute and jointly funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Immigration and Naturalization
Service to assess the economic, social, nutritional, and health effects of changes
in food stamp eligibility and other aspects of welfare reform on immigrants, their
households, and communities.
The study will sample immigrant food stamp users, non-users, and the elderly
in Los Angeles and New York to determine how policy changes are impacting households.
The study also includes interviews of households that were in The Urban Institute's
National Survey of American Families and will provide longitudinal information
and a check on retrospective information on food stamp receipt, food security
and their relationship to economic, social, nutritional, and health outcomes.
In addition, an examination of national data bases will determine whether results
could be extrapolated to other sites. The Economic Research Service contributed
$300,000 to this study in fiscal year 1998. Interviewing was underway in the
fall of 1999. The expected date of completion is October, 2001. |