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Did recent medicaid reforms cause the caseload explosion in the food stamp program?

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Author Info
A. S. Yelowitz

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Abstract

I examine whether changes in Medicaid eligibility for young children can help explain the caseload growth in the Food Stamp program between 1987 and 1995. Medicaid may increase food stamp participation through increased awareness about other welfare benefits. It could also reduce earnings through perverse labor supply incentives, thereby increasing food stamp participation.

The Medicaid expansions enacted during the 1980s offer a unique opportunity to examine empirically Medicaid's interaction with the Food Stamp program because they conditioned eligibility on the age of the child. Households with ineligible children (based on the child's age) serve as a control group to isolate Medicaid's effect. They help to eliminate many other plausible explanations for the rise in food stamp participation, including economic fluctuations at the state and national levels.

I use the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to tackle this question. It shows evidence that expanding Medicaid eligibility increased food stamp participation. The effect is quite modest, however. The expansions explain less than 10 percent of the growth in food stamps, substantially smaller than previous estimates. Moreover, its effect on food stamp participation comes entirely through increased program awareness, rather than from any change in labor supply.

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Paper provided by University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty in its series Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers with number 1109-96.

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Handle: RePEc:wop:wispod:1109-96

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Currie, Janet & Gruber, Jonathan, 1996. "Health Insurance Eligibility, Utilization of Medical Care, and Child Health," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 111(2), pages 431-66, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Aaron Yelowitz, 1995. "The Medicaid Notch, Labor Supply and Welfare Participation: Evidence from Eligibility Expansions," UCLA Economics Working Papers 738, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  3. Moffitt, Robert, 1992. "Incentive Effects of the U.S. Welfare System: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(1), pages 1-61, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. George J. Borjas, 1994. "Ethnicity, Neighborhoods, and Human Capital Externalities," NBER Working Papers 4912, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Hoynes, Hilary Williamson, 1996. "Welfare Transfers in Two-Parent Families: Labor Supply and Welfare Participation under AFDC-UP," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(2), pages 295-332, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Anne C. Case & Lawrence F. Katz, 1991. "The Company You Keep: The Effects of Family and Neighborhood on Disad- vantaged Youths," NBER Working Papers 3705, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Janet Currie & Jonathan Gruber, 1994. "Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Expansions of Medicaid Eligibility for Pregnant Women," NBER Working Papers 4644, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Cutler, David M & Gruber, Jonathan, 1996. "Does Public Insurance Crowd Out Private Insurance?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 111(2), pages 391-430, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Lara D. Shore-Sheppard, 2005. "Stemming the Tide? The Effect of Expanding Medicaid Eligibility on Health Insurance," NBER Working Papers 11091, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Moffitt, Robert & Wolfe, Barbara L, 1992. "The Effect of the Medicaid Program on Welfare Participation and Labor Supply," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(4), pages 615-26, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Moffitt, Robert, 1983. "An Economic Model of Welfare Stigma," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(5), pages 1023-35, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Borjas, George J & Hilton, Lynette, 1996. "Immigration and the Welfare State: Immigrant Participation in Means-Tested Entitlement Programs," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 111(2), pages 575-604, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Lara Shore-Sheppard, 1996. "Stemming the Tide? The Effect of Expanding Medicaid Eligibility on Health Insurance Coverage," Working Papers 740, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section.. [Downloadable!]
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  1. Thomas Lemieux & W. Bentley MacLeod, 1998. "Supply Side Hysterisis: The Case of the Canadian Unemployment InsuranceSystem," NBER Working Papers 6732, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Janet Currie & Aaron S. Yelowitz, 1998. "Public Housing and Labor Supply," JCPR Working Papers 52, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
  3. Brigitte Madrian, 2006. "The U.S. Health Care System and Labor Markets," NBER Working Papers 11980, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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