The transformation of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

Between 2000 and 2005, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, until recently, the Food Stamp Program) caseload increased by half. As the Great Recession unfolded, the SNAP caseload grew even more rapidly. Further, over the past two decades the composition of the caseload has shifted sharply away from families combining food and cash assistance and toward families receiving food assistance in the absence of any other major, means‐tested income support. By analyzing components of the caseload separately, we provide new and more insightful estimates of the effects of food and cash assistance policies and the economy on both the change in the composition of the caseload and the large caseload swings over the 1990s and 2000s. We find that the economy can explain a portion of caseload changes, but not compositional shifts. Food and cash assistance policies help to explain both changes. In total, the combination of SNAP and welfare policy changes account for about half of the sharp increase since 1994 in the share of SNAP households receiving food, but not cash, assistance. © 2011 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The Use of Party Brand Labels in Congressional Election Campaigns

In spite of the centrality of partisanship to many theories of lawmaking, and the important role that party cues play in shaping voters' evaluations of political candidates, remarkably little is known about the circumstances under which congressional candidates use partisan symbols on the campaign trail. Employing data on candidates' televised advertisements over six elections (1998–2008), the present study explores the “supply side” of partisan cues and finds that candidates are strategic about their use of party symbols. And while personal and district‐level factors influence how candidates utilize partisan rhetoric, we show that the institutional context in which they campaign also matters.