How Changes in SNAP Policy Can Increase Domestic Violence

What happens when a welfare program shifts from distributing benefits on the first of the month to a staggered schedule? Research shows that while this change can reduce theft and allow families to minimize food scarcity at the end of the month, there is risk of a dangerous unintended consequence: increased domestic abuse. In a recent study, Professors Jillian Carr and Analisa Packham found that issuing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits on days other than the first of the month increased both domestic abuse and child maltreatment. Given that low-income families disproportionately receive benefits from federal welfare programs, this paper sheds new light on the link between poverty, government welfare, and abuse.

Domestic violence, including child abuse, child neglect, and intimate partner violence, has extensive social and economic effects. Abused children are more likely to have physical, mental, and behavioral issues and experience worse economic outcomes as adults. Prior research shows that women and children in high-poverty households experience more family violence than their wealthier counterparts. However, the relationship between changes in resources and violence remains uncertain. Existing studies have indicated that government transfers can lead to increases or decreases in violence.

Carr and Packham were interested in determining whether change in benefit distribution schedules generate resource shocks in poor households that increase risk for domestic violence. Previous research suggests that an influx of resources can create financial disruptions that controlling abusers respond to with violence. In the case of altered SNAP schedules, the discrepancy of SNAP issuance from the distribution of other types of governmental assistance, such as TANF benefits, shifts household resources in ways that could lead to conflict.

To detect this effect, the researchers studied a 2010 change in Illinois SNAP policy, which provides funds on a monthly basis for low-income individuals and families to purchase food. Illinois started issuing SNAP benefits over a staggered distribution of 12 days to reduce crowding in grocery stores on the first day of each month, which is when benefits were typically distributed. This policy change served as a form of consumption smoothing since it allowed families to balance out spending and saving over the course of the entire month rather than bundle everything at the beginning of the month. Recipients continued to receive benefits only once a month regardless of the issuance date.

To measure the impact of this change on household violence, Carr and Packham examined administrative datasets on domestic violence from the City of Chicago between February 2009 to February 2011. Given that domestic violence is widely underreported, this data improves upon previous research that uses data based solely on self-reporting. Incidents that were self-reported were based on surveys conducted after the fact, and they largely underestimated the severity of abuse. The data used for this study include documented incidents that did not necessarily lead to an arrest. The researchers compared patterns in domestic violence before and after the SNAP policy change while controlling for any other effects that could have influenced domestic violence.

The results show that, per month, domestic abuse increased by 6.9% and child maltreatment increased by 30%. This finding was driven by more crimes in the last three weeks of each month, which cancelled out decreases in abuse around the first of the month. Abuse was largely comprised of domestic battery. Given that battery is the most physically harmful form of domestic abuse, this finding suggests that households respond to an influx of resources later in the month by initiating violence or increasing the intensity of attacks at those times. The authors also found that staggered SNAP policies corresponded to an increase in monthly drug crimes by 8.3%, suggesting that SNAP payments produce enough of a resource shock in households to alter drug-related behavior.

Carr and Packham observed that the overall effects of altered SNAP schedules on household violence were short-lived — increases in violence lasted somewhere between a few months to one year. These findings suggest that the transition to staggered distribution schedules, rather than staggered schedules themselves, can lead to short-term disruptions that increase the risk of household violence.

The research highlights why unintended consequences, such as domestic abuse, need to be considered before changing public benefits schedules. While prior studies indicate that changes in SNAP benefit timing can lead to reductions in theft, Carr and Packham note that the costs of violent crime are far larger than those of theft. Policymakers should also consider trade-offs between balancing out consumption of public benefits and the risk for domestic violence when making decisions about the timing of government transfer payments. A possible solution is to split benefits into multiple smaller payments to avoid conflict associated with the anticipation of receiving the bulk of resources at one time of the month. The effect of government transfers on various types of crimes will be an important area of future research to improve how public benefits are disbursed.

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Carr, Jillian B. and Analisa Packham. Forthcoming. “SNAP Schedules and Domestic Violence.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22235.