A systematic review of food assistance programs and their effect on poverty and wealth inequality

• In Event: Student Forum Roundtables Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Roundtable 13: Food Access and Inequality

Abstract

Household food insecurity has emerged as a persistent and growing concern across high-income countries, reflecting deeper structural inequalities in income distribution, labor markets, and social protection systems. While food insecurity is often framed as a nutritional issue, it is more accurately understood as a manifestation of economic precarity and unequal access to resources. Publicly funded food assistance programs represent a central policy response to this challenge, yet their broader implications for poverty and wealth inequality remain insufficiently synthesized.
This study presents a systematic review of causal evaluations of food assistance programs in high-income OECD countries. Drawing on experimental and quasi-experimental research designs, the review assesses whether these programs reduce food insecurity and examines their broader redistributive consequences. A comprehensive search of fifteen databases identified 28 eligible studies, the majority conducted in the United States. Most evaluations focused on large-scale social protection initiatives such as food stamp and school meal programs.
Findings indicate that food assistance programs are generally associated with reductions in food hardship, though effects are heterogeneous across populations and program designs. Evidence regarding impacts on income inequality, wealth distribution, and labor market outcomes remains limited and mixed. The review highlights both the potential and the constraints of food-based interventions as tools of social policy. Ultimately, reducing food insecurity requires not only targeted food assistance but also structural reforms addressing income instability, labor precarity, and broader socioeconomic inequality

Authors

• Katarina Bunakova, McGill University

• Michaela Bunakova, McGill University

• Amelie Quesnel-Vallee, McGill University

• Jaunathan Bilodeau