The Costs of Benefit Delivery in the Food Stamp Program: Lessons From a Cross-Program Analysis

by Julia Isaacs

This study compares the Food Stamp Program (FSP) with eight other public assistance programs across four measures of program effectiveness—administrative costs, error payments, program access, and benefit targeting. The comparison includes two other USDA nutrition assistance programs, three cash assistance programs, and three programs providing noncash benefits other than food or nutrition assistance. Results show that the FSP and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) present contrasting patterns. The EITC program has lower administrative costs andhigher program access rates than the FSP, but the FSP is more successful in limiting overpayments. Missing information makes it hard to generalize across the other programs, but there is some evidence suggesting that programs with higher errors have lower administrative costs. Low administrative costs also appear to be inversely associated with good program access for recipients. Also, programs that are more highly targeted tend to have higher benefit delivery costs.

This study was conducted by the Brookings Institution under a cooperative research contract with USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) Food and Nutrition Assistance Research Program (FANRP): contract number 59-5000-6-0104 (ERS project representative: Margaret Andrews). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of ERS or USDA.

Keywords: Food Stamp Program, FSP, public assistance, WIC, child nutrition, program effectiveness, costs, errors, access, Food Assistance and Nutrition Research Program, FANRP

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