%0 Report
        %A Marks, Mindy
%A Prina, Silvia
%A Gernhardt, Roy
        %T Government Shutdown and SNAP Disbursements: Effects on Household Expenditures
        %D 2023
        %8 2023 Sep
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 16452
        %U https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp16452
        %X We test the ability of SNAP eligible households to smooth consumption when facing unexpected transitory income shocks stemming from the 2018-19 government shutdown. In response to the shutdown, all states were federally mandated to pay February SNAP benefits on or before January 20th. This created a short-term windfall (two payments very close to each other) followed by a longer than normal gap during which no SNAP disbursements were received. We show that expenditures are lower in the month where benefits where advanced vis-à-vis months with unaltered benefits schedules. 
We complement this finding by exploiting preexisting state-level differences in disbursement schedules that drove some states to temporarily alter the timing of the 2019 March and April SNAP disbursements. These diff-in-diff results show that households in treated states reduced spending when there was a longer than usual gap between SNAP disbursements. Our findings are inconsistent with the permanent income hypothesis.

        %K consumption smoothing
%K permanent income hypothesis
%K SNAP
%K government shutdown