The impacts of SNAP benefit reductions on participation: Evidence from emergency allotment expirations

From 2020 to 2023, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits were supplemented by emergency allotments (EA) which, unlike regular benefits, were larger for SNAP households with higher net income. Several states ended EA issuance early before a nationwide expiration in early 2023, resulting in sharp monthly benefit reductions. We employ a staggered difference-in-differences approach to estimate the impacts of benefit reductions resulting from EA expiration on SNAP participation rates, investigating the roles of changing initial application and recertification rates in explaining these impacts, suggesting underlying changes in the returns to participation and household decision-making. We also employ interaction models to examine how impacts differed with income, extending these models to further investigate the role of income in EA expiration’s impacts on food insufficiency. Results indicate that early EA expiration reduced the SNAP participation rate by 1.48 percentage points on average. This reduction grew over time following expiration and was driven by a reduction in the number of initial applications to SNAP. Further, we estimate that reductions in SNAP participation were concentrated among relatively higher-income households who would have experienced larger reductions in benefit levels. We estimate a 3.10 percentage point increase in food insufficiency among households with income below the federal poverty level, and we find no corresponding evidence of increases for relatively higher-income households.