We address a question at the center of many policy debates: how effective is the US safety net? Many existing studies evaluate the effect of one program on economic hardship in isolation, though families typically participate in multiple programs. Using 1992–2011 data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, our analyses examine the simultaneous effect of participation in three programs, TANF, SNAP, or Medicaid/SCHIP, on a set of outcomes of intrinsic importance—measures of material hardship. We find that a 10 percentage point increase in participation in any of these three safety net programs by low-to-moderate income families with children reduces their average number of hardships by 0.11 (−0.41 elasticity), and the incidence of food insufficiency by 1.7 percentage points (−1.27 elasticity). This analysis suggests that hardship would be even more prevalent in the United States without the existence of the current safety net programs.

我们解决了许多政策辩论的核心问题：美国安全网的有效性如何？许多现有研究单独评估一项计划对经济困难的影响，尽管家庭通常参加多项计划。我们使用收入和项目参与调查中的 1992-2011 年数据，我们的分析检验了参与三个项目（TANF、SNAP 或 Medicaid/SCHIP）对一组具有内在重要性的结果（衡量物质困难）的同时影响。我们发现，有孩子的中低收入家庭参与这三个安全网计划中的任何一个增加 10 个百分点，他们的平均困难数减少 0.11（-0.41 弹性），食物不足的发生率减少 1.7个百分点（-1.27 弹性）。