The assistant professor of economics’ research on how SNAP households’ expenditures shifted due to changes in program benefits is published in the Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy journal and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Amber Waves magazine.
June Kim, assistant professor of economics in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business, recently co-authored articles about how Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) households have had to adjust their expenditures and time in response to changes in program benefits, which decreased for the first time in the program’s history in November 2013.
In the Amber Waves article “SNAP Households Adjust Their Expenditures and How They Spend Their Time in Response to Changes in Program Benefits,” Kim and co-author Matthew P. Rabbitt, a USDA economist, cite their research discussing SNAP household behaviors after benefit cuts from their journal article “Changes in Low-Income Households’ Spending and Time Use Patterns in Response to the 2013 Sunset of the ARRA-SNAP Benefit,” which was published in Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy and co-authored with Charlotte Tuttle, also an economist with the USDA.
The authors examined the effects of the 2013 SNAP benefit cut on households’ food expenditures, as well as other expenditure categories by analyzing data from the 2012-2014 Consumer Expenditure Survey.
“Results show that reduced SNAP benefits significantly decreased the food-at-home expenditure of SNAP households, but increased expenditure on used cars and public transportation,” the authors wrote. They also found that SNAP households spent less time on grocery shopping and meal preparation and more time on income-generating work.
“The results from this research, when taken together, suggest that decreasing SNAP benefits led to reductions in both food expenditures and time spent in grocery shopping and food preparation, but to more time spent on work,” the authors said.
Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, a publication of the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association, provides a forum to address contemporary and emerging policy issues within an economic framework that informs the decision-making and policy-making community.
Amber Waves is published monthly on the United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service (ERS) website. The online magazine showcases the full range of ERS research and analysis on economic and policy issues related to agriculture, food, the environment, and rural America.
Kim joined Elon’s faculty in 2019 and was previously an economics professor at Purdue University. Her scholarly interests lie in labor and health economics, economics of welfare and poverty. Before her academic career, Kim was a research associate at Korea Credit Bureau.