Date of Award

8-23-2024

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Public Administration

Advisor(s)

Colleen Heflin

Keywords

administrative burden;social policy

Subject Categories

Public Administration | Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

In this dissertation, I investigate how administrative burdens in the social safety net affect payment accuracy, benefit levels, multiple program participation, and benefit redemption. In the first chapter, I study simplified reporting, a policy that allowed states to reduce the amount of information Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients must report between certifications. I leverage the fact that simplified reporting affects only some households and in certain months to estimate its impact on the share of SNAP benefits issued in error and SNAP benefit amounts. Using administrative data from the federal SNAP Quality Control system, I find that simplified reporting meaningfully and robustly reduced SNAP payment error rates and increased SNAP benefits. The results imply that reducing administrative burdens can, not only stimulate program uptake, but also increase benefit levels. In the second chapter, I examine if SNAP certification interviews generate spillover participation for other programs by facilitating referrals. Using administrative data on SNAP recipients from the state of Virginia and a novel primary policy data set, I leverage a unique COVID-era policy change to estimate how the elimination of SNAP certification interviews affected whether SNAP recipients participated in other government assistance programs. I estimate that waiving SNAP interviews actually increased the probability SNAP recipients received TANF. I cannot conclude that waivers increased receipt of childcare subsidies or Medicaid among SNAP participants, but estimates are sufficiently precise to rule out small negative effects. The results imply that making SNAP interview waivers permanent would likely reduce SNAP compliances costs without negatively influencing spillover participation from SNAP to other social programs. In the third chapter, I investigate the effect of relaxing the federal requirement that certification appointments for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) take place in person on food benefit redemption. Leveraging the uneven implementation of WIC physical presence requirement waivers across local WIC agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic and variation in household exposure to in-person appointments, I find evidence that physical presence waivers reduced monthly household WIC benefit redemption by about $15, or 17 percent of the sample mean. While eliminating WIC’s in-person requirements for certification appointments can ease compliance burdens and improve program uptake, my findings imply that remote-only appointments may have had unintended consequences of reducing benefit redemption.

Access

Open Access

Download

Share

COinS