This First Focus report from the Brookings Institution offers a summary of the economic recession’s impact on children in the United States. During an average month in 2011, an estimated 6.5 children had an unemployed parent, with more than 1 million living in California, which has an unemployment rate of 12 percent. Many children are receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits as a result of the recession, as children make up half of all SNAP beneficiaries. SNAP caseloads have increased by 70 percent over the last four years. Finally, child poverty has increased from 18 percent in 2007 to 22 percent in 2010.

The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, in partnership with the Urban Institute, released this research brief, which examines policies that are client-friendly and the implications that this has for the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF). Authors provide research on the CCDF, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Medicaid/State Child Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP). The recommendations for CCDF include simplifying the application and renewal processes and recognizing that administrative changes may affect subgroups in different ways.

The 1996 federal welfare reform law, which sets time limits on benefits and requires increasing numbers of clients to participate in work-related activities, was designed to encourage families to leave cash assistance for work and thereby reduce the welfare rolls. Aware of the possibility that the new legislation might negatively affect access to Medicaid, policymakers enacted Section 1931 to de-link Medicaid from welfare. Nevertheless, Medicaid enrollment has declined at a rate higher than expected since 1996, leading federal and state policymakers to become concerned that enrollment has indeed been affected by changes in cash assistance programs. Similar concerns have been raised in regard to the dramatic drop in participation in the Food Stamp Program. In response to these concerns, the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture contracted with Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. (MPR) to identify state policies and procedures that appear to promote enrollment in Medicaid and/or the Food Stamp Program in the post-welfare reform era. We selected Indiana as the site for this study because the state increased Medicaid enrollment by almost 15 percent between 1998 and 1999. This report documents the results of our examination of Indiana's efforts to promote enrollment, primarily for children, in Medicaid and SCHIP and to begin to identify strategies for increasing enrollment
in the Food Stamp Program. (author abstract)

The Economic Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture released a report to Congress stating that limited access to affordable and nutritious food is considered a contributor to obesity and disease throughout the United States. The report examines access to food throughout the United States, characteristics and causes for access levels, and effects of limited access, and suggests recommendations for increased access to food throughout the United States. The report also provides a literature review, assessment of access to supermarkets and grocery stores, and an analysis of economic and health effects related to access levels.

Current statistics show that one in three adults is obese, and from 1980 to the present, the number of obese children has tripled. Obesity is particularly a problem in low-income communities of color, and research is showing that low-income communities have little access to healthy food establishments. This resource, from Policy Link, offers four solutions for increasing healthy food establishments in these areas, which include developing new grocery stores, improving small stores, connecting farmers to low-income communities, and sustaining farmers markets in such areas.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps) currently reaches 45 million people, which is an increase of 69 percent since the current economic recession began. From the Urban Institute, this fact sheet discusses how SNAP caseloads and unemployment have increased both nationally and by State. Authors provide a map of the United States, which shows the concurrent increase in SNAP and unemployment across the country.

As part of the Metropolitan Policy Program through the Brookings Institution, this paper analyzes poverty across cities and suburbs as a result of the recession. Since December 2007, 6.6 million people have become unemployed, and the need for assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly, food stamps) has reached a high. The author provides an analysis of unemployment and food stamps as indicators of poverty to understand how poverty across these areas has unevenly increased.

This study, conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. and its subcontractors, American Management Systems, Inc. and the George Washington University Center for Health Services Research and Policy, was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to identify strategies states and local welfare offices are using to promote participation in food stamps, Medicaid and SCHIP and the ongoing challenges they face in providing support to working families. (author abstract)

Congress recently passed legislation mandating that food prescribed in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA’s) Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) be provided using electronic benefit transfer (EBT), which operates like a debit card. Ten State agencies currently provide WIC benefits using EBT, and many other States are in the process of implementing EBT technology in the WIC program. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, reauthorizing USDA’s child nutrition and WIC programs, requires that all States use EBT technology by 2020. Utilizing EBT technology will enable WIC moms to purchase WIC foods without the visibility of paper vouchers. The EBT system will also provide data to WIC State agencies on each food item purchased so they can better manage food costs through informed food package decisions and rebates on infant formula. EBT will also assist retailers in efficiently completing WIC transactions.

This paper is from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and shows why collaboration and coordination across programs is critical in terms of policy, procedure, and data utilization. Designed for practitioners, authors discuss the challenges to implement this process and how to overcome them. Authors focus on Medicaid and SNAP, but also provide examples of how to include TANF, child care, and other programs in such an effort to better support working families.