Effects of the Food Stamp Program on Household Food Insecurity

Surprisingly, many studies find that food stamp participation is associated with food insecurity. This finding may be due to endogeneity, meaning that households that are more food insecure are also the households that are most likely to enroll in FSP. To estimate the true effect of FSP participation on food insecurity, studies must control for endogeneity. Unfortunately, controlling for endogeneity has proven difficult. With more sophisticated methods and recent changes in the data available, some studies have been able to estimate a decrease in food insecurity associated with FSP participation. This paper conducts an empirical analysis following these methods and using recent data to examine whether FSP reduces food insecurity. Three sets of regression equations are estimated to determine (1) if there is an increase in household food insecurity before enrolling in FSP (2) if the number of months since a household first enrolled in FSP impacts food insecurity and (3) if FSP causes households that are initially food insecure to become food secure.