How Did Different Types of Cash Transfers During the COVID-19 Pandemic Relate to Families’ Food Insecurity and Psychological Well-being? Evidence from Daily Surveys

• In Event: Tax Credit Payments During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Implications for Family Economic Hardship and Psychological Wellbeing

Abstract

Unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) have been a longstanding tool for combatting income inequality worldwide, but in the U.S. were largely phased out with the passage of PRWORA in 1996. During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, two temporary UCT programs were enacted with the American Rescue Plan Act: a one-time stimulus check delivered in March 2021 and monthly Child Tax Credit (CTC) payments delivered from July-December 2021. Emerging evidence suggests both forms of UCTs were effective at reducing food insecurity and increasing indicators of family well-being, particularly among low-income families (e.g., Hamilton et al., 2022). However, what remains to be explored is whether they altered food insecurity and well-being in qualitatively different ways. For instance, a large, one-time cash transfer, like a stimulus check, may greatly reduce food insecurity in the short-term, but not in the long-term as the cash depletes. In contrast, a series of smaller payments delivered on regular intervals, such as the expanded CTC, might reduce food insecurity to a lesser extent, but keep rates stably low. A similar phenomenon might be expected for psychological well-being. These differences matter because evidence indicates that short-term changes in food insecurity and well-being, even at the daily level, meaningfully affect parent and child outcomes (Hines, 2022). This paper asks how different types of UCTs may differentially relate to food insecurity and parent and child well-being using daily surveys collected from January-October 2021 in a sample of low-income families with school-aged children in a semi-rural area of Pennsylvania.
In longitudinal models, food insecurity lowered immediately and remained low after stimulus check receipt, compared to months before receipt, contrary to our hypothesis. Notably, these effects only emerged for non-SNAP recipients (Figure 1), possibly because SNAP recipients were receiving expanded benefits during the pre-ARPA period. Negative parent and child mood and behaviors similarly lowered after stimulus check receipt, for SNAP and non-SNAP recipients, but these effects took longer to emerge, appearing in the second month after receipt for parents and the third month for children. CTC receipt also predicted lower food insecurity after receipt for non-SNAP participants, but only across three of the four months of receipt (Figure 2). Negative parent mood similarly lowered only in the first two months of CTC receipt before it went back up to pre-CTC levels, for SNAP and non-SNAP recipients, whereas negative parenting behaviors were consistently low over time. Child well-being was not significantly altered after CTC receipt. These differences across forms of UCTs may have emerged because the CTC arrived just after the stimulus: some of the early effects of the CTC on food insecurity and psychological well-being could reflect the combination of stimulus and CTC checks, effects that dissipated by stimulus money ran out. This interpretation suggests that CTC checks may not have provided enough money to stabilize food insecurity and well-being alone. Notably, however, these checks were associated with stably low negative parenting behaviors, suggesting perhaps that consistency of cash delivery matters for certain indicators of family well-being more than amount.

Authors

• Samantha Steimle, Georgetown University
  Presenting Author

• Rebecca Ryan, Georgetown University

• Caitlin Hines, Georgetown University

• Anna Gassman-Pines, Duke Univeristy