F OOD STAMP BENEF ITS AND CHILD P OVERTY DEAN J OLLIFFE,CRAIG GUNDERSEN,LAURA TIEHEN, AND J OSHUA WINICKI In 2000, 8.8 million children lived in households participating in the Food Stamp Program, making this assistance program a crucial component of the social safety net. Despite its importance, little research has examined food stamps’ effect on children’s overall well-being. Using the Current Population Survey from 1989 to 2001, we consider the impact of food stamps on three measures of poverty—the headcount, the poverty gap, and the squared poverty gap. We find that in comparison to the headcount measure, food stamp benefits lead to large reductions in the poverty gap and squared poverty gap measures. Key words: child poverty, current population survey, food stamps. The 1977 Food Stamp Act states that “in or- der to promote the general welfare, [it is the policy of Congress] to safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation’s population by raising levels of nutrition among low-income households” (Title 7, Section 2011 of the U.S. Code of Law). There are many studies on the effectiveness of the Food Stamp Program (FSP) in achieving the direct goal of rais- ing the nutritional well-being of low-income households. For example, Breunig et al. ex- amine the impact of food stamps on food ex- penditures; Wilde, McNamara, and Ranney study whether food stamps improve dietary quality; and Gundersen and Oliveira examine the links between food stamps and food inse- curity. Relatively less work has assessed the effectiveness of food stamps as a policy instru- ment to promote the general welfare of the population. One commonly used indicator of general welfare is poverty, and the purpose of this ar- ticle is to examine the role of food stamps in alleviating child poverty. There has been some research on this issue including Cun- nyngham (2001, table 3.2) and Dalaker and Proctor who examine the incidence of poverty after the inclusion of food stamp and other Dean Jolliffe and Laura Tiehen are economists with the Economic Research Service of the USDA, Craig Gundersen is associate pro- fessor, Iowa State University; Joshua Winicki is teacher, Athey Creek Middle School, West Linn, Oregon. The authors wish to thank Steven Carlson, Beth Daponte, Robert Gibbs, Tim Parker, Prasanta Pattanaik, Leslie Whitener, Parke Wilde, two anonymous referees of this journal, and session participants at the 2002 Population Association of America con- ference for helpful comments. The views and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. in-kind benefits. Bishop, Formby, and Zeager examine the effect of food stamps on reduc- ing poverty and improving the well-being of the poor during the 1980s. They show that the FSP had become more effective between 1982 and 1990 in reducing the income deficiencies of the poor. Scholz and Levine also examine the role of FSP in reducing poverty by esti- mating the extent to which food stamp ben- efits reduce the sum difference between the poverty line and the incomes of the poor in 1997. We extend this limited literature in three ways. First, we examine child poverty to bring focus to an important sub-population that has much higher rates of poverty than the general population. Second, we consider the effect of food stamps on measures that reflect the depth and severity of poverty rather than just the in- cidence of poverty. This extension is particu- larly relevant since the value of food stamp benefits declines as a household’s income in- creases. Third, we examine the potential influ- ence of changes in the Food Stamp Program on poverty. We consider what would happen under alternative distributions of food stamp benefits and what would happen if the number of participants increased. The motivation for this article is to under- stand how well the largest U.S. food assistance program performs in improving the welfare of poor children. In 2000, 17.1 million persons lived in low-income households that partici- pated in the FSP, and of these program partici- pants, 8.8 million were children (Cunnyngham 2001, table A-34). This article examines the ex- tent to which food stamp benefits can reduce the burden of child poverty and also to explore Amer. J. Agr. Econ. 87(3) (August 2005): 569–581 Copyright 2005 American Agricultural Economics Association