Delivering Summer Electronic Benefit Transfers for Children through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children: Benefit Use and Impacts on Food Security and Foods Consumed

Abstract

Background: The Summer Electronic Benefit Transfers for Children (SEBTC) demonstration piloted summer food assistance through electronic benefit transfers (EBTs), providing benefits either through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) EBT.

Objective: To inform food assistance policy and describe how demonstrations using WIC and SNAP models differed in benefit take-up and impacts on food security and children's food consumption.

Design: Sites chose to deliver SEBTC using the SNAP or WIC EBT system. Within each site, in 2012, households were randomly assigned to a benefit group or a no-benefit control group.

Participants: Grantees (eight states and two Indian Tribal Organizations) selected school districts serving many low-income children. Schoolchildren were eligible in cases where they had been certified for free or reduced-price meals during the school year. Before the demonstration, households in the demonstration sample had lower incomes and lower food security, on average, than households with eligible children nationally.

Intervention: Grantees provided selected households with benefits worth $60 per child per summer month using SNAP or WIC EBT systems. SNAP-model benefits covered most foods. WIC-model benefits could only be used for a specific package of foods.

Outcome measures: Key outcomes were children's food security (assessed using the US Department of Agriculture food security scale) and food consumption (assessed using food frequency questions).

Statistical analyses: Differences in mean outcomes between the benefit and control groups measured impact, after adjusting for household characteristics.

Results: In WIC sites, benefit-group households redeemed a lower percentage of SEBTC benefits than in SNAP sites. Nonetheless, the benefit groups in both sets of sites had similar large reductions in very low food security among children, relative to no-benefit controls. Children receiving benefits consumed more healthful foods, and these impacts were larger in WIC sites.

Conclusions: Results suggest the WIC SEBTC model deserves strong consideration.

Keywords: Children’s food consumption; Children’s food security; Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); Summer food assistance; Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).