Cash Transfers and Guaranteed Minimum Income Programs:
Research, Evaluation, and Policy
Prague, Czech Republic
September 9-10, 2024
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“Food Insecurity Caused by Housing Insecurity: Lessons from a One-time Cash Transfer Experiment in the US Midwest”
Jerry Anthony, University of Iowa
Introduction: Housing is often the highest cost item in low-income households’ budgets and is much higher and inelastic as compared to food costs (Stone, 1993). In such households, high housing cost burdens are likely to constrain expenditure on food. When such households receive one-time unrestricted use funds, they could possibly use them to alleviate food insecurity. Do they?
Background: Several scholars have found correlational and causal relationships between housing cost burdens and food insecurity (such as Fafard St-Germain & Tarasuk, 2017; and Kirkpatrick & Tarasuk, 2007). Housing assistance to low-income households has been found to reduce food insecurity. However, whether housing cost-burdened households when given cash that could be used for a plethora of needs, use it to address food insecurity has not been examined (Kirkpatrick & Tarasuk, 2011). Such evidence would strongly suggest that in the absence of financial assistance, households are cutting back on food expenditures. Moreover, if a one-time cash payment were to be used for food, rather than say for a downpayment on a better car or to pay off rent arrears, that would point to the acuteness of food insecurity.
Data and Methods: In 2022, Johnson County, Iowa, used funding federal American Rescue Plan Act 2021 funding to create a Direct Assistance Program (DAP) to provide a one-time cash payment of $1,400 to low-income households. A total of 2,238 households, were mailed $1,400 checks by September 2022. The county administration provided us with household information about the recipients. In addition, we surveyed the households twice – once in October 2022, shortly after they received the checks, and then again six months later. We employ administrative data and data received from all 990 respondents to the first-round survey, in a logistic regression model to explore two hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: Households that are housing cost-burdened will spend more of the cash payment on food as compared to households that are not.
Hypothesis 2: Households that self-report housing insecurity will spend more of the cash payment on food as compared to households that do not report being housing insecure.
Our analysis has just begun, and the findings are too premature to share at this point.
Broader implications: Most government-sponsored anti-poverty programs in the US have focused on providing in-kind transfers rather than direct cash assistance. Cash transfers provide more flexibility to recipients, allowing them to use funds for their highest-priority needs. Through our analysis, we hope to uncover the extent of food insecurity caused by housing insecurity and develop estimates of whether new forms of housing assistance or higher amounts of housing assistance are needed to address this problem.
References Fafard St-Germain, AA & Tarasuk, V (2017) High vulnerability to household food insecurity in a sample of Canadian renter households in government-subsidized housing. Canadian J Public Health 108, e129.10.17269/CJPH.108.5879
Fafard St-Germain, AA & Tarasuk, V (2020) Homeownership status and risk of food insecurity: examining the role of housing debt, housing expenditure and housing asset using a cross-sectional population-based survey of Canadian households. Int J Equity Health 19, 5.10.1186/s12939-019-1114-z
Kirkpatrick, SI & Tarasuk, V (2011) Housing circumstances are associated with household food access among low-income urban families. J Urban Health 88, 284–296.10.1007/s11524-010-9535-4
Kirkpatrick, SI & Tarasuk, V (2007) Adequacy of food spending is related to housing expenditures among lower-income Canadian households. Public Health Nutrition 10, 1464–1473.10.1017/S136898000700081X