Examining SNAP and TANF caseload trends, responsiveness, and policies during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) cases increased by 3.3 million between March and June 2020, their largest quarterly increase ever. During the pandemic, many states adopted a wide set of policies and procedures to facilitate program enrollment, retention, and eligibility. I track these policies and create a pandemic policy index measuring state generosity. States that adopted more generous policies experienced larger TANF and SNAP caseload growth, especially eligibility policies such as exempting TANF work requirements or SNAP P‐EBT availability. Analyzing the caseload relationship to labor markets, caseloads were less responsive to unemployment rate changes during the pandemic relative to the pre‐pandemic period.

Public assistance, survival, and household trust during the containment period of the first wave of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Togo.

This paper analyzes the impact of public assistance during the first wave of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic with regard to household survival, using data from a two-round survey of 1274 respondents in Togo conducted by the National Institute of Statistics, Economic and Demographic Studies. The analysis uses the propensity score matching method, the probit model, and the discrete endogenous regressor. The first result shows that more than two thirds of respondents experienced income shocks due to the health crisis. The second result shows that public assistance programs have enabled the beneficiary populations to overcome the impact of shocks.

Changes in health-related quality of life scores among low-income patients on social welfare programs in Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic: a single-center repeated cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Low-income is one of the well-established determinants of people's health and health-related behavior, including susceptibility to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection. Two social welfare services are available in Japan to support financial and medical care among low-income patients: Public Assistance (PA), which provide both minimum income and medical costs; and Free/Low-Cost Medical Care (FLCMC), wherein only medical costs were covered. In this study, changes in Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) scores of low-income patients on PA and FLCMC, before and after COVID-19 pandemic, were described and compared against those that are not utilizing the said services (comparison group) to evaluate the contribution of social welfare services in protecting the HRQOL of the beneficiaries during the pandemic. METHODS: We used repeated cross-sectional data of adult beneficiaries of FLCMC and PA, as well as those without social welfare services, who regularly visit the Kamigyo clinic in Kyoto, Japan. We collected the data from 2018 and 2021 using a questionnaire on patients' socioeconomic attributes and the Japanese version of Medical Outcomes Study 12-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-12). The Japanese version of SF-12 can calculate the three components scores: physical health component summary (PCS), the mental health component summary (MCS), and the role-social component summary (RCS), which can be transformed to a 0-100 range scale with a mean of 50 and standard deviation of 10. RESULTS: Data of 200 and 174 beneficiaries in 2018 and 2021, respectively, were analyzed. Low-income patients on social welfare services had lower PCS, and RCS than the comparison group in both years. Multiple linear regression analyses with cluster-adjusted standard error estimator showed that the decline in MCS was significantly higher among FLCMC beneficiaries than in those without welfare services (Beta: -4.71, 95% Confidence Interval [CI]: -5.79 to -3.63, p < 0.01), and a decline in MCS among PA recipients was also observed (Beta: -4.27, 95% CI: -6.67 to -1.87 p = 0.02). CONCLUSIONS: Low-income beneficiaries of social welfare may have experienced mental health deterioration during the COVID-19 pandemic. To maintain healthy lives during the pandemic, additional support on mental health for low-income recipients of social welfare services may be required.

Examining SNAP and TANF caseload trends, responsiveness, and policies during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) cases increased by 3.3 million between March and June 2020, their largest quarterly increase ever. During the pandemic, many states adopted a wide set of policies and procedures to facilitate program enrollment, retention, and eligibility. I track these policies and create a pandemic policy index measuring state generosity. States that adopted more generous policies experienced larger TANF and SNAP caseload growth, especially eligibility policies such as exempting TANF work requirements or SNAP P-EBT availability. Analyzing the caseload relationship to labor markets, caseloads were less responsive to unemployment rate changes during the pandemic relative to the pre-pandemic period.

Theorizing on neo public assistance: How do race and class impact resource uptake and behavior following disaster?

The consequences of environmental disasters and other ecologic and communal crises are frequently worst in racially/ethnically minoritized and low-income populations relative to other groups. This disproportionality may create or deepen patterns of governmental distrust and stoke health promotion disengagement in these groups. To date, there has been limited contextualization of how historically disenfranchised populations utilize government-administered or facilitated resources following such disasters. Focusing on the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, we examine and theorize on the usage of neo public assistance, free risk reduction resources that are provided to disaster survivors as a liminal means of redressing ills created and/or insufficiently mitigated by the state. We surveyed 331 Flint residents, evaluating their usage of four neo public assistance resources following the FWC, finding low to moderate uptake: 131 residents (39.6%) indicated that they obtained blood lead level (BLL) screenings, 216 (65.3%) had their tap water tested for lead (Pb) and other contaminants, 137 (41.4%) had their home water infrastructure replaced, and 293 (88.5%) had acquired bottled water at community distribution sites. Unemployment, receiving public benefits, and lacking reliable transportation and stable housing were associated with lower uptake of some resources. Compared to White and "Other" race individuals, Black residents were generally more likely to acquire/utilize these resources, suggesting heightened concerns and health promotion proclivities even in the face of observed macro and individual-level challenges. Potential reasons and implications are discussed.

Make the Invisible Underbanked Visible: Who Are the Underbanked?

When the COVID-19 pandemic caused businesses to close and triggered high unemployment in 2020, millions of unbanked U.S. households, those without a bank account, had to wait for weeks and months for their stimulus checks to arrive. The delayed delivery of stimulus checks issued by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act sheds light on the critical role that safe, affordable financial services and products play in people’s ability to cope with financial shocks. Dialogues over banking practices have been framed with a banked-unbanked dichotomous framework that masks more nuanced understandings of households’ financial realities, including the underbanked, who use a bank account and alternative financial services simultaneously. Using data from the 2015 National Financial Capability Study, this study identifies and compares predictors of being underbanked and unbanked, respectively. We found that the underbanked group is a sizable, distinctively different group. Income volatility and welfare benefit receipt are both associated with being underbanked rather than unbanked. Our findings call for expanding the current, limited framework to gain more complete, nuanced understandings of banking practices.

Balancing Resettlement, Protection, and Rapport on the Front Line: Delivering the Resettlement Assistance Program During COVID-19

Drawing on my experience as a general counsellor in the Resettlement Assistance Program (RAP), I explore the impact COVID-19 has had on the initial resettlement services provided for government-assisted refugees (GARs) and on frontline workers in the field. Balancing the requirement to enforce protection measures and the need to establish rapport was one of the major challenges the pandemic posed to GAR support practices. To unpack the particularities of this challenge, I give the example of two resettlement services GARs receive upon arrival: namely, resettlement orientations and children's education. I argue that using an intersectional lens demonstrates the pandemic's unequal effects and how they exacerbate the vulnerabilities of GARs embarking on their resettlement journey. I hold that developing COVID-19 responses informed by intersectionality opens a space for services and policies that mitigate these effects.Alternate :Puisant dans mon expérience comme conseillère générale au sein du Programme d'aide à la réinstallation (PAR), j'explore l'impact qu'a eu la COVID-19 sur les services de réinstallation initiaux offerts aux réfugiés parrainés par le gouvernement (RPG) et sur les travailleurs de première ligne dans ce domaine. La recherche d'un équilibre entre l'exigence d'appliquer les mesures de protection et le besoin d'établir un rapport était l'un des défis importants posés par la pandémie aux pratiques de soutien du PAR. Afin d'éclaircir les particularités de ce défi, je donne l'exemple de deux services de réinstallation que les RPGs reçoivent à leur arrivée, soit les services d'orientation à la réinstallation et l'éducation des enfants. Je soutiens que l'emploi d'une approche intersectionnelle démontre les effets inégaux de la pandémie et la manière dont ils exacerbent les vulnérabilités des RPGs qui débutent leur parcours de réinstallation. Je considère que le développement de réponses à la COVID-19 fondées sur l'intersectionnalité ouvre la voie à des services et des politiques qui atténuent ces effets.