Volume 38, Supplement 2003
Kabbani, Nader S., and Parke E. Wilde. 2003. "Short Recertification Periods in the U.S. Food Stamp Program." Journal of Human Resources 38(S):1112-1138.
The federal government requires states to recertify most participants in the Food Stamp Program at least once a year. In recent years, many states have dramatically increased their use of short recertification periods (three months or less) in an effort to lower their food stamp error rates. This trend has been especially pronounced for working households. This article investigates the impact of recertification regimes on error rates and program participation rates, for households with and without earnings. Based on these estimates, it quantifies the tradeoff that states faced during the 1990s between maintaining low error rates and encouraging program participation.
Nader Kabbani is an assistant professor at the American University of
Beirut; Parke Wilde is an economist with the Economic Research Service, U.S.
Department of Agriculture. The authors thank Margaret Andrews, Craig Gundersen,
Dean Jolliffe, Mark Prell, and Leslie Whitener at the Economic Research Service;
Steven Carlson and Stefanie Schmidt at the Food and Nutrition Service, U.S.
Department of Agriculture; Robert Greenstein and Dottie Rosenbaum at the Center
on Budget and Policy Priorities; Chris Hamilton; and participants at the Joint
IRP/ERS Conference on Income Volatility and Implications for Food Assistance
Programs. Two anonymous reviewers provided excellent comments and suggestions.
The data used in this article can be obtained beginning May 2004 through April
2007 from Nader Kabbani, Department of Economics, American University of Beirut,
3 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, New York, NY 10017-2303. (
nk26@aub.edu.lb ).
© 2003 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
US ISSN 0022-166X