The Effect of Food Stamps on Children’s Health: Evidence from Immigrants’ Changing Eligibility

Abstract

The Food Stamp program is currently one of the largest safety net programs in the United States and is especially important for families with children. The existing evidence on the effects of Food Stamps on children’s and families’ outcomes is limited. I utilize a large, recent source of quasi-experimental variation—changes in documented immigrants’ eligibility across states and over time from 1996–2003—to estimate the effect of Food Stamps on children’s health. I find loss of parental eligibility has large effects on program receipt, and an additional year of parental eligibility before age five improves health outcomes at ages 6–16.