Examining Food Insecurity Among Families Receiving SNAP

Timeline

Summer 2026

Description

The team will collaborate with co-primary investigators Rebecca Ryan (Georgetown) and Natasha Pilkauskas (University of Michigan). Federal food assistance programs, particularly SNAP, reduce food insecurity among the families who receive them, but these benefits do not fully meet low-income families’ nutritional needs. Specifically, SNAP benefits do not typically last families the entire month, with food insecurity spiking at the end of the SNAP month for many recipients. The consequences of these economic shortfalls are severe: children’s test scores decline, their behavior problems in school increase, and crimes – particularly theft from food stores – rise at the end of the SNAP month.

The team will use data from surveys of a national sample of SNAP recipients to investigate the following questions:

• What is the pattern of daily food insecurity throughout the SNAP month? How does this vary for child-level and household-level food insecurity?
• What are the patterns of children’s wellbeing throughout the SNAP month? Do these patterns vary alongside child- or household-level food insecurity?
• What are the psychological mechanisms that help explain links between the timing of the SNAP benefit cycle and children’s wellbeing?

This project will not only inform the SNAP program in a meaningful way, but it could reveal how economic strain more broadly affects low-income families.

Team

Members

Shuyi Qiu, graduate fellow

Leaders

Team Advisor: Anna Gassman-Pines, Ph.D. (Public Policy)