Food Stamps and Crime
Introduction
The Food Stamps Act of 1964 was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson as part of his broader “War on Poverty” agenda to help alleviate the effects of poverty that plagued millions of Americans in the 1960s. Families could purchase stamps from authorized retailers, such as their local grocery store, that would serve as a coupon which allowed them to buy certain food items at substantially reduced prices. As the program was voluntary until 1974, county enrollment was time-varying for the first decade of the program. There were 380,000 participants in 43 counties in 1964 and 15 million participants in all counties in 1974.
Barr and Smith (2023) exploits the time-varying enrollment of counties in Food Stamps to determine the causal effect of availability of Food Stamps in childhood on criminal behavior in adulthood. The paper uses data from the North Carolina Department of Public Safety to construct conviction rates for birth month cohorts of individuals born in North Carolina and data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) to construct arrest counts by age per 100 individuals for birth cohorts of individuals born in each county in the UCR. These constructed crime rates are linked to a measure of the fraction of months of exposure to Food Stamps from conception to age 5 and from age 0 to age 5, respectively.
The paper finds that exposure to Food Stamps throughout childhood reduces the likelihood of a conviction of any crime by 1.3 percentage points, of a violent crime by 0.5 percentage points, and of a property crime by 0.3 percentage points. These outcomes are more pronounced among the non-white population. Barr and Smith (2023) uses these results to estimate the MVPF of the long-run effects of Food Stamps on violent crime.
MVPF = 3.9
Net Cost
Barr and Smith (2023) estimates the public cost of Food Stamps to be the sum of the dollar amount of benefits issued between 1964-1974, the cost of the contemporary work disincentives of the program, and distortionary taxes needed to raise revenue. The paper estimates total costs to be between $88.242 million and $168.088 million (2015 dollars).
Hendren Sprung-Keyser (2020) estimates the public cost of Food Stamps to be $1.05 per $1 of government spending, which incorporates the direct costs ($1), reductions in tax revenue from contemporaneous behavioral responses to the program ($0.16), and increases in tax revenue from higher adult earnings from children that participated in the program ($-0.11). Barr and Smith (2023) incorporates its estimate of reductions of public costs due to reductions in government criminal justice system expenditures into Hendren Sprung-Keyser’s estimate for a total cost of $0.77 per dollar of government expenditure.
Willingness to Pay
Barr and Smith (2023) find Food Stamps reduced murders by 50 per 1,000 offenses, reduced robberies by 224 per 1,000 offenses, and reduced assaults by 192 per 1,000 offenses. The paper uses cost of crime estimates from McCollister et al. (2010) to determine to social savings of these crime reductions. Total societal savings due to reduced murders, robberies, and assaults is estimated to be between $291.99 million and $131.217 million in 2015 dollars.
Hendren Sprung-Keyser (2020) estimates willingness to pay for Food Stamps to be $1.09 per $1 of government spending, which incorporates beneficiaries willingness to pay for the benefit itself ($0.62) and for impacts on infant mortality, longevity, and later adult earnings gains of children ($0.47). Barr and Smith (2023) incorporates its estimates of social benefits in the form of reduced crime into Hendren Sprung-Keyser (2020)’s estimate for a total willingness to pay between $2.98 to $5.98 per dollar of government expenditure depending on the choice of social crime costs.
MVPF Summary
The MVPF of the long-run effects of Food Stamps on violent crime is estimated to be between 3.86 and 7.74.
References
Barr, Andrew and Alexander A. Smith (2023). “Fighting Crime in the Cradle: The Effects of Early Childhood Access to Nutritional Assistance.” Journal of Human Resources, 58(1):43-73. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.58.3.0619-10276R2
Hendren, Nathaniel and Ben Sprung-Keyser (2020). “A Unified Welfare Analysis of Government Policies.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 135(3): 1209–1318. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjaa006
McCollister, K.E., M.T. French, and H. Fang. 2010. “The Cost of Crime to Society: New Crime- Specific Estimates for Policy and Program Evaluation.” Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 108(1): 98–109. DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2009.12.002
Policy Features
- Empirical Method
- Difference in Differences
- Research Type
- Primary
- Peer Reviewed
- Yes
- MVPF Publication Link
- doi.org/10.3368/jhr.58.3.0619-10276R2