SNAP Reform Case Study

Obesity is a major public health problem, and is a rising cause of death among western-industrialized countries. Dietary lifestyle plays a significant role in this issue so understanding how households respond to Food Stamps can indicate whether the SNAP’s current role in obesity in the US is a cause for reform. I will first show that households receiving Food Stamps react to targeted benefits infra-marginally, which doesn’t imply a more than proportional positive surge in food consumption. After assessing the nature of quantities purchased, I will assess the quality of foods purchased by SNAP recipients against non-recipient households. Despite sampling being isolated to only one large grocery retailer, emphasize that the two groups in question share very similar food spending decisions, indicating obesity as a nationwide issue across all the population. Finally, I will present the results of the Healthy Start Vouchers policy, which could act as a projection for the effectiveness of a SNAP reform, in promoting Healthy eating.
Part I: What effect do Food Stamps have on households?
To gain insight into whether the SNAP program has a detrimental impact on BMI we need to see how households react to receiving Food Stamps against receiving cash. This determines whether households are distorted or inframarginal and hence whether recipients will disproportionately spend more of their purchasing powers on food products. The canonical theory suggests that Food Stamps should have the same effect as cash benefits meaning consumers are inframarginal.
Previous studies having reported different outcomes, Hoynes and Schazenbach found that consumers respond to Food …show more content…
Healthy Start Scheme is a sample specific scheme implemented in the UK in 2005, designed to assist low income families predominantly with children under 4, in purchasing healthier foods vital to the development of infants, including the parents’ nutritional