Food Stamp Program Costs and Error Rates, 1989-2001
By Christopher Logan, William Rhodes, Joseph Sabia. ERS project representative: Kenneth Hanson
Contractor and Cooperator Report No. (CCR15) 127 pp,
January 2006
Evidence is strong that, beginning in 1995, an increase in reported certification-related costs per Food Stamp Program (FSP) household contributed to reduced error rates. This report presents the results of a study of trends in FSP administrative costs and errors from 1989 to 2001. It describes the trends and composition of FSP administrative costs. It also presents a multivariate regression analysis of the relationship of reported certification costs to FSP error rates (including overpayments, underpayments, and incorrect eligibility decisions). The report presents alternative models that relate a composite case error rate to certification effort per FSP household, caseload characteristics, the implementation of welfare reform, and short certification periods. The results imply that, in the period after the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, States on average had to spend more effort on certification-related activities than in previous years to achieve a given level of accuracy. The models predict that, if a State's FSP certification budget is fixed and the number of FSP households increases, the effort per FSP household will fall and error rates will rise, all other things equal.
Keywords: Food Stamp Program, FSP, food assistance, caseloads, FSPQC, FNS Quality Control (QC) public-use microdata, Food Assistance and Nutrition Research Program, FANRP, USDA, ERS
In this report ... Chapters are
in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.
- Abstract, Acknowledgments, Contents, and Executive Summary, 117 kb
- Chapter 1: Introduction, 34 kb
- Chapter 2: FSP Administrative Costs, 70 kb
- Chapter 3: FSP Caseload Characteristics and Administrative Actions, 112 kb
- Chapter 4: FSP Certification Error Trends and Variation, 67 kb
- Chapter 5: Multivariate Analysis of FSP Certification Costs and Error Rates, 94 kb
- Chapter 6: Conclusions and Discussion, 21 kb
- References, 15 kb
- Appendix A, 30 kb
- Appendix B, 77 kb
- Appendix C, 39 kb
- Entire Document, 565 kb
Updated date: January 26, 2006
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