Who is answering the call to social equity?: An examination of race and discretionary decision-making in the administration of SNAP
Date
2022
Authors
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
A great deal of social policy in the United States is decentralized, allowing state and local policymakers and administrators to make discretionary decisions that structure program access and outcomes. A large body of scholarship has demonstrated the racialized nature of this decentralized structure by either examining the influence of racial attitudes and/or racial composition on policy choices, or exploring how these policy choices and/or administrative practices contribute to racial inequities in social welfare program outcomes. While the vast majority of this work has focused on cash assistance programs, there is increasing attention on the racialization and racial equity consequences in a broad set of social policies. This project contributes to this line of research by examining one of the most significant social welfare programs—the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—with a primary focus on a particularly vulnerable target population, able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs). ☐ In the first empirical chapter of my dissertation, I draw on the administrative burden framework to identify four key dimensions of program experience affected by state SNAP policy choices: learning costs, psychological costs, compliance costs, and supportiveness. In this chapter I create novel empirical measures of administrative burdens and supportiveness using data on SNAP policy choices from the SNAP Policy Database (ERS, USDA, 2019), a county waiver dataset (Dickert-Collin et al., 2019), and the FNS-583 Employment and Training (E&T) Program Activity Report. I then examine the extent of cross-state and over-time variation in these measures from 1996 to 2015. The results indicate substantial cross-state and over-time variation in administrative burden and supportiveness. ☐ In the second empirical chapter I examine the association between race-related factors (racial composition and state-level racial attitudes) and SNAP policy choices related to administrative burden and supportiveness, using a panel regression with data from 1996-2015. The state racial composition measures are pulled from the publicly available American Community Survey (ACS) (Ruggles et al., 2021), and the state-level racial attitudes are derived from the racial resentment scale in the American National Election Survey (Smith, Kreitzer, & Suo, 2020). The results from this chapter demonstrate an adverse relationship between the Black racial composition measures and states imposing aspects of administrative burden in SNAP, and a positive relationship between the Latino racial composition measures and states decreasing aspects of administrative burden in SNAP. ☐ The last empirical chapter of my dissertation analyzes the association between SNAP policy choices, the race-related factors, and racial inequity in the receipt of SNAP benefits for ABAWDs from 2000 to 2015. In order to create the ABAWD caseloads, I utilize demographic characteristics from ACS (Ruggles et al., 2021). The results from this chapter indicate that the supportiveness dimension of SNAP policy choices and the proportion of the Latino state population were negatively related to Black ABAWDs receiving SNAP benefits over white ABAWDs. ☐ The results of my entire dissertation project build on the current state of knowledge about discretionary decision-making and racial equity in social welfare programs in several ways. First, in using a social equity framework, this project examines a primary site of discretionary decision-making in social welfare programs and explores the role of race and racism. In so doing it identifies how and where racial inequities are sustained. The project provides empirical evidence to inform public policy and administration scholars on how racial bias and decentralized policy designs can undermine the equitable provision of social welfare programs for racially minoritized low-income constituents. Lastly, by emphasizing the broader societal concerns on the pervasiveness and harmful effects of structural racism, this project contributes to broader societal calls on actualizing social and racial equity by addressing how racism is often embedded in public policy and administration.
Description
Keywords
Decentralized policy design, Discretionary decision-making, Public administration, Race, Social equity, Social safety-net