Food Insecurity and Public Assistance

This paper examines if welfare programs reduce the probability that vulnerable household experience food deprivation because of financial constraints. Although the 1996 welfare reform legislation specifically limited the eligibility of immigrant households to receive assistance, many states chose to protect their immigrant populations by offering state-funded aid to these groups. I exploit these changes in eligibility rules to examine the link between food insecurity and public assistance. The evidence indicates that a 10 percentage point cut in the fraction of the population that receives public assistance increases the fraction of food-insecure households by about 5 percentage points.