SNAP Work Requirements and Spillover to Untargeted Adults

• In Event: SNAP Participation

Abstract

Work requirements are a central feature of U.S. welfare program design, reflecting policymaker goals to incentivize assistance recipients to transition from benefit receipt to self-sufficiency and to target benefits to the neediest recipients who cannot support themselves via work. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) imposes a time limit on benefit receipt for able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs) who do not meet requirements to work for 80 hours per month. Pre-2023, ABAWD work requirements targeted adults without work-limiting disabilities ages 18-49 without child or incapacitated dependents in their household. Previous literature indicates that these work requirements substantially increase program exits and reduce program participation among targeted ABAWDs. However, work requirements could impose costs on other untargeted participants including additional administrative burden and potential stigma as well as additional demands on state agencies administering the program. Recently work requirements were expanded with legislation in 2023 and 2025 to apply to more adults in SNAP as well as Medicaid expansion states. Assessing the potential effects on targeted and untargeted adults is relevant to understanding the broader implications of these expansions.

In this paper, I investigate whether ABAWD work requirements affect SNAP participation among various groups of adults, including those specifically targeted or not targeted by requirements. I exploit variation in the geographical application of ABAWD work requirements over time, employing a novel nationwide county-month panel dataset on the presence of waivers suspending the ABAWD time limit from 1997-2025. Pairing this dataset with American Community Survey microdata, I estimate the effects of time limit reimplementation following the national suspensions occurring from 2009-2010 and 2020-2023 on various groups of adults. Adult groups are differentiated along several dimensions: age below and above the ABAWD age cutoff, the presence or absence of dependents, and the presence or absence of reported disabilities. I employ a triple-difference approach as well as more modern staggered difference-in-difference and event study approaches to examine heterogeneous impacts, focusing on SNAP participation but also examining labor supply responses. Preliminary results indicate that ABAWD work requirement reimplementation reduces SNAP participation by about 32% of mean levels among adults targeted by requirements, with smaller but significant increases in labor supply. I find some preliminary evidence of significant program participation reductions among other untargeted groups without corresponding labor supply increases, notably older adults above the ABAWD age threshold (27% of mean levels), suggesting the role of indirect costs of participation associated with work requirements.

Author

• Jordan W. Jones, USDA Economic Research Service
  Presenting Author