Abstract

This study uses administrative records from participants in a longitudinal study of low-income families in three 

U.S. cities to determine whether enrollment in the Food Stamp Program increased in households with U.S.-born 

children and foreign-born heads after legal immigrants’ access to the program was restored under the Farm Bill Act 

of 2002. The analysis includes cross-tabulation, graphical comparisons, and multivariate Cox proportional hazard 

models predicting the risk of program entry and program exit. Results indicate that there was a short-term spike in the 

likelihood of enrollment by households headed by noncitizen parents immediately after the Farm Bill Act was fully 

implemented in October 2003. For this population, the likelihood of enrollment declined by April 2004, but 

participation in the post-Farm Bill Act era remained elevated through 2006 compared with prior periods.

*Direct correspondence to Paula Fomby, Department of Sociology, University of Colorado Denver, Campus Box 105, P.O. Box 173364, 

Denver, CO 80217-3364, or paula.fomby@ucdenver.edu.

By Paula Fomby, University of Colorado Denver*

Participation in the Food Stamp 

Program by U.S.-Born Children 

of Immigrants Before and After 

the Farm Bill Act of 2002

Contractor and Cooperator Report No. 67

June 2011

This study was conducted by John Hopkins University under a cooperative 

research agreement with USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) Food 

Assistance and Nutrition Research Program (FANRP): agreement number 

43-3AEM-4-80116 (ERS project representative: Constance Newman). The 

views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of ERS 

or USDA.
Executive Summary 

Participation in the Food Stamp Program by U.S.-Born Children of Immigrants 

Before and After the Farm Bill Act of 2002

By Paula Fomby

This report uses administrative records from participants in a longitudinal study of lowincome families in three U.S. cities to determine whether enrollment in the Food Stamp 

Program2 increased in households with U.S.-born children and foreign-born heads after legal 

immigrants’ access to that program was restored under the Farm Bill Act of 2002. Federal 

policies regarding legal immigrants’ access to food stamps changed five times during and after 

welfare reform in 1996. Each change redefined the eligible population. Prior to passage of the 

Personal Responsibility Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), legal immigrants 

and U.S. citizens had comparable access to federal social service benefits, including food stamps. 

Immediately after welfare reform, most legal immigrants became ineligible for food stamps 

(although some states introduced state-funded nutrition assistance programs to cover immigrants 

ineligible for federal aid). The Agricultural Research, Extension, and Education Act of 1998 

restored federal eligibility to food stamps for immigrant children and elderly or disabled 

immigrants who were in the United States prior to the 1996 welfare reform act. The Farm Bill 

Act of 2002 further broadened eligibility in three phases. In October 2002, the Act restored 

eligibility to all legal immigrants who were receiving disability payments from the federal 

government or a state. In April 2003, the Act restored access to food stamps to immigrants who 

had legally resided in the United States for at least five years. The terms of the act were 

broadened in October 2003 to restore eligibility to all legal immigrants under age 18, regardless 

of time in the United States. For adult applicants, the Farm Bill of 2002 retained the condition of 

“sponsor deeming” for adult recipients, meaning that sponsors’ income counts toward the total 

income of sponsored legal immigrants when assessing income eligibility. (Sponsor deeming 

applies to about 25 percent of immigrants whose sponsors live in separate households (Leftin and 

Wolkwitz 2009)). As of October 2003, sponsor deeming was not considered in calculating 

income eligibility for child applicants. The end result of the policy changes essentially returns 

legal immigrants who had been in the United States for at least five years to the standards of 

eligibility in place prior to welfare reform.

Previous research has found that low-income U.S.-born children of immigrants were less 

likely than comparable children of native-born parents to receive food stamps in the period 

immediately after welfare reform, although U.S.-born children of immigrants whose families met 

income requirements were eligible for all federal benefits for the entire period, both before and 

after welfare reform. In 2000, 34.3 percent of eligible mixed status households (where a citizen 

child resided with at least one noncitizen parent) received food stamps, compared to 69.6 percent 

of all eligible households with children. Researchers have hypothesized that immigrant parents 

 2 The Farm Bill Act of 2008 renamed the Food Stamp Program to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, 

or SNAP. This report generally maintains the use of the original program name because the analyses are based on 

survey data collected before the name change.
were less likely to enroll their children in programs for which they themselves were ineligible. 

This hypothesis is supported by comparisons of participation in various programs by U.S.-born 

children of legal immigrants and children of U.S.-born parents. Low-income children of legal 

immigrants were as likely or more likely than comparable children of U.S.-born parents to 

participate in programs to which immigrants’ access was not affected by welfare reform (i.e., the 

Women, Infants, & Children program), or where immigrants’ access became more selective but 

barriers to children’s access were relatively low and state and federal agencies promoted 

children’s enrollment (i.e., Medicaid and state children’s health insurance plans (S-CHIP), as 

opposed to TANF). 

This project investigates whether children of immigrants became more likely to receive food 

stamps when legal immigrants’ eligibility was broadly restored under the 2002 Farm Bill Act 

compared to the period before restoration. The objectives of the project are summarized in the 

following hypothesis: Enrollment among U.S.-born children would be expected to increase if 

immigrant parents are more likely to enroll children in programs for which they themselves are 

also eligible. This hypothesis may be tested by considering enrollment rates among U.S.-born 

children of foreign-born parents as follows by comparing enrollment rates and participation rates 

in the Food Stamp Program among U.S.-born children of immigrants before and after October 

2003, when eligibility was restored for all legal immigrants, and by comparing enrollment and 

participation rates among U.S.-born children of immigrants to those of children of native-born 

parents before and after the eligibility dates to determine whether children of immigrants’ use 

increased disproportionately in the post-restoration period.

The project uses data from the Three-City Study, a longitudinal study of the well-being of 

children and their female caregivers in the post-welfare reform era. The study followed 

approximately 2,400 low-income families in low-income neighborhoods in Boston, Chicago, and 

San Antonio over three waves between 1999 and 2005. The study was designed so that 

approximately half of participants were not enrolled in TANF at wave 1. The multi-method study 

includes three waves of survey data collected from children and caregivers, as well as an indepth developmental study that followed young children from the survey sample in conjunction 

with the first two waves of the survey and an intensive ethnography of 250 families not included 

in the survey sample. 

Results suggest that the Farm Bill Act was effective in enrolling low-income mixed status 

households in the six-month period immediately after its full implementation in October 2003. 

Since implementation, noncitizen-caregiver households have become more likely to receive food 

stamps than are households headed by naturalized caregivers, but noncitizens’ households 

continue to have lower rates of receipt than do low-income households headed by U.S.-born 

caregivers. The overall pattern of enrollment by mixed status households suggests that the Farm 

Bill Act immediately satisfied some unmet need for food stamps among families who were 

already in the public assistance system as TANF recipients. Following that period, there was a 

slower but steady uptake in food stamp enrollment through June 2006 that was on a par with 

entrance rates for U.S. citizens. Immediately after the Farm Bill Act went into effect, average 

monthly exit rates were higher for U.S.-born caregivers than for noncitizen caregiver households, 

but exit rates for the two groups have since achieved parity, and by 2006, the two groups 
paralleled each other in their quarterly participation rates in the Food Stamp program (see figure 

1).

Nearly all of the families in the study had been in the United States for at least five years 

when the Farm Bill Act went into effect, meaning that they became eligible to enroll during the 

first phase of the Act’s implementation in April 2003. One possible explanation for the lag in

uptake is that information about the Act might have begun to spread only after full 

implementation in October. For example, state agencies might have held off on broadly 

advertising expanded eligibility until all of the phases to broaden the program had been 

implemented, perhaps to avoid receiving and rejecting applications from families with minor 

immigrants who had been in the United States fewer than five years during the first phase of 

implementation. Alternatively, news might have spread by word of mouth more effectively once 

the Act was fully implemented. Another explanation is that the application and processing stages 

to begin transferring benefits to families might have taken several months after legal immigrants 

initially became eligible to enroll, so that even early adopters did not show up in the rolls until 

Fall 2003. 

This study has several limitations. First, it is representative only of low-income families in 

low-income neighborhoods in three U.S. cities. Second, the study would benefit from an 

improved definition of means-tested eligibility to participate in the Food Stamp Program. 

Sponsor deeming is a dimension of eligibility that is salient to the foreign-born caregiver 

population and that we are unable to capture in our household-based study. A challenge to 

researchers focusing on noncitizen caregivers’ eligibility for public assistance is to effectively 

model sponsors’ income and to account for how it is figured into a noncitizen caregiver’s 

application for public assistance. Such an effort may require a study design focused exclusively 

on legal immigrants, like the New Immigrant Study. Third, while administrative records are 

considered superior to self-report data in terms of accuracy and completeness, respondents who 

consent to share their administrative records are distinct from those who decline, so some 

amount of bias is introduced into the study design. Finally, we have not accounted for variation 

in state and federal policies or macroeconomic conditions over time that might have 

differentially affected Food Stamp Program participation among children with native-born or 

foreign-born parents. Future work will investigate how the differential impacts of policy changes 

and macroeconomic structure by nativity affected enrollment in TANF and the Food Stamp 

Program for mixed-status families.
1

This report uses administrative records from participants in a longitudinal study of lowincome families in three U.S. cities to determine whether enrollment in the Food Stamp 

Program3 increased in households with U.S.-born children and foreign-born heads after legal 

immigrants’ access to that program was restored under the Farm Bill Act of 2002. 

Federal policies regarding legal immigrants’ access to food stamps changed five times during 

and after welfare reform in 1996. Each change redefined the eligible population. Prior to passage 

of the Personal Responsibility Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), legal 

immigrants and U.S. citizens had comparable access to federal social service benefits, including 

food stamps. Immediately after welfare reform, most legal immigrants became ineligible for food 

stamps (although some states introduced state-funded nutrition assistance programs to cover 

immigrants ineligible for federal aid).

Background

4

 3 The Farm Bill Act of 2008 renamed the Food Stamp Program to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, 

or SNAP. This report generally maintains the use of the original program name because the analyses are based on 

survey data collected before the name change.

The Agricultural Research, Extension, and Education Act 

of 1998 restored federal eligibility to food stamps for immigrant children and elderly or disabled 

immigrants who were in the United States prior to the 1996 welfare reform act. The Farm Bill 

Act of 2002 further broadened eligibility in three phases. In October 2002, the Act restored 

eligibility to all legal immigrants who were receiving disability payments from the federal 

government or a state. In April 2003, the Act restored access to food stamps to immigrants who 

had legally resided in the United States for at least five years. The terms of the act were 

broadened in October 2003 to restore eligibility to all legal immigrants under age 18, regardless 

of time in the United States. For adult applicants, the Farm Bill of 2002 retained the condition of 

“sponsor deeming” for adult recipients, meaning that sponsors’ income counts toward the total 

4 Legal immigrants with 40 quarters of work experience, veterans, and active members of the military and their 

families remained eligible.
2

income of sponsored legal immigrants when assessing income eligibility. (Sponsor deeming 

applies to about 25 percent of immigrants whose sponsors live in separate households (Leftin and 

Wolkwitz 2009)). As of October 2003, sponsor deeming was not considered in calculating 

income eligibility for child applicants. The end result of the policy changes essentially returns 

legal immigrants who had been in the United States for at least five years to the standards of 

eligibility in place prior to welfare reform. (See Capps, Koralek, Lotspeich, Fix, Holcomb, and 

Reardon-Anderson 2004 for a detailed discussion of these policy changes.)

Previous research has found that low-income U.S.-born children of immigrants were less 

likely than comparable children of native-born parents to receive food stamps in the period 

immediately after welfare reform (Capps, Fix, Henderson, and Reardon-Anderson 2005; 

Cunnyngham 2002; Fix and Passel 2002; Fomby and Cherlin 2004), although U.S.-born children 

of immigrants whose families met income requirements were eligible for all federal benefits for 

the entire period, both before and after welfare reform. In 2000, 34.3 percent of eligible mixed 

status households (where a citizen child resided with at least one noncitizen parent) received 

food stamps, compared to 69.6 percent of all eligible households with children (Leftin and 

Wolkwitz 2009). Researchers have hypothesized that immigrant parents were less likely to enroll 

their children in programs for which they themselves were ineligible (Capps and Fortuny 2006; 

Capps, Ku, Fix, Fielder, Greenwell, and Hays 2002; Fomby and Cherlin 2004). This hypothesis 

is supported by comparisons of participation in various programs by U.S.-born children of legal 

immigrants and children of U.S.-born parents. Low-income children of legal immigrants were as 

likely or more likely than comparable children of U.S.-born parents to participate in programs to 

which immigrants’ access was not affected by welfare reform (i.e., the Women, Infants, & 

Children program), or where immigrants’ access became more selective but barriers to children’s 
3

access were relatively low and state and federal agencies promoted children’s enrollment (i.e., 

Medicaid and state children’s health insurance plans (S-CHIP), as opposed to TANF) (Capps, 

Fix, Henderson, and Reardon-Anderson 2005; Cunnyngham 2004; Fix and Passel 2002; Fomby 

and Cherlin 2004). 

The current project investigates whether children of immigrants became more likely to 

receive food stamps when legal immigrants’ eligibility was broadly restored under the 2002 

Farm Bill Act compared to the period before restoration. However, an increase in food stamp use 

by children of immigrants may be indicative of other policy changes. Families left TANF as a 

result of rising income, time limits, sanctions, or personal choice. Any observed increase in food 

stamp enrollment among children of immigrants may simply reflect the overall trend to use food 

stamps in place of TANF income. In fact, while FSP participation broadly diminished 

immediately after welfare reform, program use among eligible households increased annually in 

the three states considered between 2004 and 2006 (the last year considered here) (Cunnyngham, 

Castner, and Schirm 2008). Therefore, while the analysis examines changes in absolute 

enrollment rates among children of immigrants after October 2003, when access to food stamps 

was restored for all legal immigrants, it also compares the prevalence of enrollment in food 

stamps among children of immigrants to prevalence among children of U.S.-born parents over 

time. A relative increase in food stamp use over time by children of immigrants would indicate 

the influence of a policy change specifically affecting immigrant and mixed-status families.

Research Questions and Hypotheses

The objectives of the project are summarized in the following research question, hypothesis 

and empirical tests:
4

Did enrollment and participation in the Food Stamp Program increase for U.S.-born 

children of immigrants after eligibility was restored for legal immigrants by the Farm Bill Act of 

2002?

Hypothesis: Enrollment among U.S.-born children would be expected to increase if 

immigrant parents are more likely to enroll children in programs for which they themselves are 

also eligible. This hypothesis may be tested by considering enrollment rates among U.S.-born

children of foreign-born parents as follows:

Test 1a. Compare enrollment rates and participation rates in the Food Stamp Program among 

U.S.-born children of immigrants before and after October 2003, when eligibility was restored 

for all legal immigrants.

Test 1b. To isolate the effect of the policy change, compare enrollment and participation rates 

among U.S.-born children of immigrants to those of children of native-born parents before and 

after the eligibility dates to determine whether children of immigrants’ use increased 

disproportionately in the post-restoration period.

The project uses data from the Three-City Study, a longitudinal study of the well-being of 

children and their female caregivers in the post-welfare reform era. The study followed

approximately 2,400 low-income families in low-income neighborhoods in Boston, Chicago, and 

San Antonio over three waves between 1999 and 2005. The study was designed so that 

approximately half of participants were not enrolled in TANF at wave 1. The multi-method study 

includes three waves of survey data collected from children and caregivers, as well as an indepth developmental study that followed young children from the survey sample in conjunction 

Data 
5

with the first two waves of the survey and an intensive ethnography of 250 families not included 

in the survey sample. 

The current project uses information from the three waves of survey data. One child from 

each sampled household was selected as the primary unit of analysis. Focal children in the 

sample were between 0 and 4 years old or 10 to 14 years old in 1999. At each wave, focal 

children and their female caregivers responded to separate survey instruments. Approximately 20 

percent of children’s caregivers (mostly mothers) in the sample are foreign-born. The most 

frequent countries of origin are Mexico and the Dominican Republic. 

The first wave of data was collected between February and December 1999. Children and 

caregivers were re-interviewed 16 months later, on average, between September 2000 and June

2001, and for a third and final time between February 2005 and February 2006. The wave 1 

response rate was 75 percent, and the retention rate from wave 1 to wave 3 was 80 percent.

During the first survey wave, female caregiver respondents were asked to report all dates 

when they began or ended a spell of participation in the Food Stamp Program where they or their 

children were the recipient(s) during the past two years (1997-1999). If a caregiver or child was 

receiving food stamps at the beginning of that two-year window, the caregiver was asked to 

provide the actual start date of the spell. At the second wave of the study, caregivers provided 

start and end dates for spells of food stamp receipt occurring between the two survey waves. At 

the third wave of the study, caregivers provided data parallel to what they provided in the first 

wave: They reported the start and end dates for all spells occurring within the last two years, with 

actual start dates reported where a spell was in progress at the beginning of the two-year 

window. The resulting information from the survey provides a continuous report of food stamp 

receipt from 1997 to 2000 or 2001 (depending on when respondents were interviewed at wave 2) 
6

and a report of food stamp receipt between 2003 and 2005 (or between 2004 and 2006 for the 

few respondents interviewed near the end of data collection). 

To supplement survey data, the Three-City Study research team has collected administrative 

records for TANF and Food Stamp Program enrollment for those caregivers participating in the 

third wave of the study who consented to participate in the administrative records portion of the 

study.

5 These records provide a continuous and accurate report of program participation for 

consenting respondents who still resided in Illinois, Massachusetts, or Texas at wave 3.6

The survey and administrative data are complementary. The administrative data are 

continuous and generally more accurate than self-reports on the timing of food stamp enrollment 

and participation. However, the administrative data are not available for all study participants, so 

sample size is lower. Furthermore, the sample in the administrative data may be biased to the 

extent that undocumented foreign-born caregivers lack Social Security numbers that were used 

for record matching, and are necessarily excluded from the administrative data component. 

(Study participants lacking a Social Security number were not asked for a taxpayer identification 

number.) In sum, the administrative data include fewer cases and may not be representative of 

the entire survey sample.

The 

records indicate the dates of receipt and benefit amount for benefits received by the caregiver of 

by any children on whose behalf the caregiver applied.

For the purposes of the current project, only administrative data are used. Preliminary 

analyses (available upon request) indicate significant discrepancies between self reports and 

administrative records about uptake rates in the Food Stamp Program, with self reports 

 5

 The consent rate was 75 percent.

6 The matching effort has been completed and was about 95 percent successful, meaning that we have validated that 

administrative records were drawn for the correct person in 95 percent of cases.
7

suggesting significant underreporting compared to administrative records. Among those cases 

that did report Food Stamp Program enrollment during the observation period, there were 

significant discrepancies between self reports and the administrative reports with regard to the 

timing of enrollment. We are pursuing an analysis of the correlates of erroneous information in 

the self-report data; for the time being, we regard the administrative records as more accurate, 

bearing in mind that selection into the administrative sample may produce biased results. Our 

analysis includes a description of the potential sources of selection bias emerging from the 

incomplete representation of the survey sample in the administrative records database.

We have not estimated respondents’ eligibility for the Food Stamp Program because we lack 

data on monthly income, assets, and household membership over the entire observation period. 

Therefore, the analytic sample includes some households that are at least periodically ineligible 

for the Food Stamp Program. However, the sample by design is low-income and vulnerable to 

falling into poverty – a marginal drop in income might make families who are ineligible in one 

month eligible in the next. Cross-sectional participation rates in our sample are similar to 

participation rates among the eligible population reported in Leftin and Wolkwitz (2009).

Four methods using administrative records address the question of whether the incidence of 

enrollment in the Food Stamp Program increased among U.S.-born children of foreign-born 

caregivers after the 2002 Farm Bill Act. Only households where a U.S.-born focal child

remained with the same caregiver and which participated in the study at all three waves are 

included in the analytic sample.

Methods

The first analytic method is a cross-tabular analysis that describes the prevalence of 

participation in the Food Stamp Program at each wave of the Three-City Study by the female 
8

caregiver’s nativity status. Waves 1 and 2 occurred before passage of the Farm Bill Act, and 

wave 3 occurred after its passage. The second method is a graphical description of the 

proportion of households with U.S.-born and foreign-born caregivers initiating enrollment in the 

Food Stamp Program in each quarter between June 1997 (About five years before eligibility was 

restored to all legal immigrants) and June 2006 (the last month administrative records were 

collected for wave 3 participants). The quarters include January to March, April to June, July to 

September, and October to December.

Third, a multivariate analysis using a Cox proportional hazard model framework predicts the 

hazard rate of enrolling in the Food Stamp Program in a given month when a household includes

a foreign-born female caregiver compared to households with U.S.-born female caregivers, given 

that the household was not enrolled the previous month. The analysis considers the period from

June 1997 to June 2006, the period for which we have continuous administrative records from all 

three cities. For each household, the Cox proportional hazard model includes one record for each 

month for the period under consideration up to and including the month when a household began

a spell of food stamp receipt. For each household, the analytic file may contain multiple spells of 

receipt over the 9-year period, and the regression model includes a count of the number of prior 

Food Stamp Program entries as a control variable. In the case that the household does not begin 

to receive food stamps in the observation period, the case is right-censored in the last month 

observed. The Cox proportional hazard model measures the hazard ratio of Food Stamp Program 

enrollment. The pool of potential enrollees changes from month to month. As each household 

exits the Food Stamp Program, it re-enters the eligible pool. We recognize that eligibility is 

means-tested. Continuous data on income and assets would permit us to estimate a household’s 

eligibility in each month, but we lack those data. Instead, we use administrative reports of the 
9

household’s receipt of TANF in each month and a respondent’s self-reported employment 

history as a proxy for means-tested eligibility. (The vast majority of legal immigrant household 

heads in our sample were in the United States when PRWORA passed and therefore remained 

eligible for TANF during the period of observation.)

The multivariate Cox proportional hazard model pools households including U.S.-born 

children of native-born, Puerto Rican island-born, and foreign-born caregivers who are not 

enrolled in the Food Stamp Program in a given month. The set of analytic models includes

indicators of nativity status, citizenship status, and historical time. Specifically, dummy variables

represent four periods: June 1997 to March 2003, before any element of the Farm Bill Act was 

implemented; April 2003 to September 2003, when eligibility was restored on a restricted basis; 

October 2003 to April 2004, the six-month period following the broader re-instatement of 

immigrant eligibility; and May 2004 to June 2006. As we describe below, these periods represent 

a post-hoc interpretation of the observed data, which suggested a moderate uptick in enrollment 

immediately after the October 2003 expansion of the Farm Bill, followed by a tapering off in 

mid-2004. The period prior to April 2003 is the excluded category. The key result in each model 

is the coefficient associated with the interaction of foreign-born/non-citizen status and historical 

time. A positive interaction coefficient associated with any of the post-Farm Bill periods would 

be consistent with the hypothesis that the policy change regarding legal immigrants’ eligibility 

increased the likelihood that households including U.S.-born children and noncitizen immigrants 

would receive food stamp benefits (either as recipients themselves or through their caregiver’s 

receipt). 

Control variables include time-varying measures of marital status (married, cohabiting, or not 

married or cohabiting), age of the youngest child in the household, age of the focal child 
10

originally sampled into the Three-City Study, caregiver’s employment status (any employment 

vs. unemployed), TANF participation status, caregiver’s age, and the number of prior entries to 

the Food Stamp Program. The time-varying marital status indicator is based on a caregiver’s 

union history reported at wave 3. Age of the youngest child in the household and age of the focal 

child are based on household roster reports from each wave. Caregiver’s employment status is 

based on self-reported employment histories from each wave. TANF status is based on 

administrative reports of TANF receipt in each month. Time-invariant characteristics include 

caregiver’s race/ethnicity (Non-Latina white, non-Latina black, or Hispanic), household poverty 

status at wave 1, and state of residence.

The event history model takes the following form:

where log h(t) represents the logged value of the predicted hazard rate of enrollment in the Food 

Stamp Program, X1 represents a vector of variables indicating caregiver’s nativity and 

citizenship status (born in the United States, born in Puerto Rico, naturalized foreign-born citizen 

or foreign-born non-citizen), X2 represents a set of dummy variables corresponding to the 

historical period in which a person-month record falls, X3 represents the interaction between 

foreign-born noncitizen status and historical period, X4 represents time-variant characteristics, 

and X5 represents time-invariant characteristics. Β1 through β5 represent vectors of coefficients 

associated with each corresponding set of covariates.

The fourth analytic method is a series of Cox proportional hazard models predicting exit 

from the Food Stamp Program, given that a household was enrolled the previous month. As with 

the model predicting program entry, the model predicting program exit includes multiple spells 

= β + β + β + β + β + ε 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 log h(t) X X X X X
11

of program participation. The covariates are the same as those described in the program entry 

model.

The administrative records sample includes 1,285 households. After deleting cases where 

the focal child was not born in the United States, where the household was not interviewed at 

wave 2, where the child did not live continuously with the same caregiver, or where data were 

missing on independent variables, the analytic sample includes 946 households. We compare this 

group of households to excluded eligible households from the full Three-City Study sample. 

Eligible households from the full sample include those where a focal child was U.S.-born, the 

same household responded at all 3 waves, the child remained with the caregiver over the course 

of the study, and data for the analysis were complete. In total, 470 eligible households did not

participate in the administrative records sample.

Note on bias in the analytic sample 

A Three-City Study participant might be excluded from the administrative records 

sample for one of three reasons. First, a study participant might have explicitly declined to 

consent to the add-on administrative records study (N=304). Second, the Three-City Study 

protocol at wave 3 required interviewing by telephone those respondents who had moved more 

than 100 miles from the city where they were originally interviewed. The administrative records 

study did not solicit consent from telephone respondents because a long-distance move might 

have put a respondent in another state from which the study investigators would not request 

administrative records, and because the investigators expected that response rates to a telephone 

request for confidential data would be low (N=38). Third, participants who consented might have 

provided a Social Security number that could not be validated by a credit bureau database or by 

the administrative records database to which the number was submitted for matching (N=128).
12

Table 1 provides a comparison of the analytic sample to the remaining portion of the eligible 

longitudinal Three-City Study sample that is excluded from the administrative records pool.

Time-varying indicators are measured as of June 1997, the first month of the observation period.

Table 1. Descriptive statistics, administrative records sample 

and Three-City Study participants excluded from administrative records sample

Analytic sample

Excluded 

eligible 

households

Variable Mean

Std. 

Dev. Mean

Std. 

Dev.

Caregiver is U.S.-born 0.81 0.71 *

Caregiver is a naturalized citizen 0.04 0.05

Caregiver is a noncitizen 0.11 0.17 *

Caregiver born in Puerto Rico 0.05 0.06

Caregiver's age, in years 29.75 9.48 30.19 9.49

On food stamps, w1 (self-report) 0.64 0.49 *

On food stamps, w2 (self-report) 0.52 0.39 *

On food stamps, w3 (self-report) 0.57 0.42 *

On TANF, w1 (self-report) 0.40 0.32 *

On TANF, w2 (self-report) 0.28 0.21 *

On TANF, w3 (self-report) 0.18 0.11 *

Focal child's age 3.84 3.91 4.19 4.72

Age of youngest child in household 4.45 4.82 3.60 3.75

Caregiver is working 0.09 0.13 *

Household in poverty, wave 1 0.78 0.72 *

Caregiver is non-Hispanic white 0.09 0.08

Caregiver is non-Hispanic black 0.45 0.46

Caregiver is Hispanic 0.46 0.46

Caregiver is single 0.61 0.58

Caregiver is cohabiting 0.21 0.18

Caregiver is married 0.18 0.24 *

Household in Boston 0.30 0.42 *

Household in Chicago 0.34 0.34

Household in San Antonio 0.36 0.24 *

N 976 460

*Group differences are statistically significant at p<.05

Households that did not participate in the administrative records study were more often 

headed by non-citizens compared to households that did participate. This is a potentially 

significant source of bias. However, administrative records may provide a more accurate

estimate of the effect of the Farm Bill Act on households with foreign-born caregivers. The Farm 
13

Bill Act restored eligibility only to legal immigrants. The Three-City Study survey did not ask 

foreign-born caregivers to report their legal status, and it is highly probable that the sample 

includes undocumented immigrants whose ineligibility for the Food Stamp Program would be 

unchanged by the Farm Bill Act. Because undocumented immigrants who lack a Social Security 

number (or who report a false SSN) will not be represented in the administrative records sample, 

that sample is more likely to include only legal immigrants among the foreign-born in the ThreeCity Study. Non-participants were more likely to be employed in June 1997, less likely to be in 

poverty at wave 1, more often married, more likely to reside in Boston (where participation rates 

were also lower for the Three-City Study overall), and less likely to live in San Antonio (where 

Three-City Study participation rates were higher). Other group differences were not statistically 

significant.

Cross-tabular analysis

Results

Table 2 summarizes three dimensions of contact with the Food Stamp Program: the average 

monthly participation in a given period among all households, the average monthly entrance rate

in a given period among food stamp non-recipients, and the average monthly exit rate in a given 

period among food stamp recipients. Changes in the monthly participation rate are a function of 

the entrance rate offset by the exit rate. Data are presented separately for households headed by 

U.S.-born caregivers, non-citizen caregivers, foreign-born citizen caregivers, and caregivers born 

in Puerto Rico. For each dimension, we present the average monthly rate within each of the four 

periods considered. Panel 1 presents average monthly participation rates. 

In general, households with Puerto Rican-born caregivers were the most likely to receive 

food stamps. In an average month before the Farm Bill Act was implemented in April 2003, 66% 
14

of Puerto Ricans in the sample received food stamps, and 60% received food stamps in an 

average month between April 2004 and June 2006. They were followed by households with 

U.S.-born caregivers. Both groups were more likely to receive food stamps than were households

with foreign-born caregivers. Prior to the full implementation of the Farm Bill Act, households 

headed by noncitizens were the least likely of the four groups to receive food stamps. After the 

full implementation of the Farm Bill Act in October 2003, food stamp use in noncitizen-headed 

households increased, and the average monthly receipt rate surpassed that for foreign-born 

citizen headed households after March 2004.

Table 2. Monthly averages of proportion of respondents participating in, enrolling in, 

or exiting from the Food Stamp Program, by historical 

period

U.S.-

born Noncitizen

Naturalized 

citizen

Puerto 

Ricanborn

Ever participating in Food Stamp Program during period

Before April 2003 0.60 0.41 0.49 0.67

April 2003 - September 2003 0.56 0.39 0.44 0.57

October 2003 - March 2004 0.59 0.43 0.44 0.57

April 2004 - June 2006 0.56 0.47 0.39 0.60

Entering Food Stamp Program (of all not enrolled in prior month)

Before April 2003 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.01

April 2003 - September 2003 0.04 0.03 0.02 0.02

October 2003 - March 2004 0.04 0.04 0.02 0.01

April 2004 - June 2006 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.02

Exiting Food Stamp Program (of all enrolled in prior month)

Before April 2003 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.01

April 2003 - September 2003 0.03 0.06 0.04 0.00

October 2003 - March 2004 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.01

April 2004 - June 2006 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.01

The second panel of table 2 shows average monthly entrance rates by nativity status over the 

four periods considered. Households with U.S.-born, non-citizen, or citizen caregivers 

experienced higher rates of enrollment in the periods immediately following partial and full 

implementation of the Farm Bill Act, and enrollment for each group decreased in the period 
15

beginning six months after full implementation. The highest enrollment rate for households 

headed by non-citizen caregivers was in the period within six months of the full implementation 

of the Farm Bill Act, when an average of 4 percent of non-recipients enrolled in the program 

each month.

The third panel of table 2 shows average monthly exit rates by nativity status. All groups 

except Puerto Ricans experienced their highest exit rates in the six-month period between the 

partial and full implementation of the Farm Bill Act (ending in September 2003). An average of 

6 percent of non-citizen-headed households that were in the Food Stamp Program exited each 

month in that period, offsetting the rising entrance rates for that population and resulting in a net 

drop in enrollment compared to the earlier period (see panel 1). Households with U.S.-born 

caregivers experienced a similar but smaller dropoff.

It is important to note that the comparison over time presented in Table 2 does not account 

for changes in the general economy or policy changes that might have differentially affected 

eligible children with native-born or foreign-born parents. For example, FSP policies like the 

transition to electronic benefit transfers and fingerprinting or greater outreach efforts might have 

disproportionately affected enrollment and exit rates for children in one parental nativity group 

or the other. Furthermore, the early part of the period under observation was characterized by 

strong economic growth, and the later period by a decline in growth. To the extent that 

macroeconomic factors resulted in differential employment and income growth for native-born 

and foreign-born parents, the apparent nativity differential in the effect of Food Stamp Program 

policy is overestimated in this descriptive analysis.

Graphical analysis
16

.4 .5 .6 .7

Quarterly participation (proportion)

June 97Jan 01Jan 02Jan 03 Apr 03Oct 03Apr 04Jan 05Jun 06

Month (6/97-6/06)

US-born Noncitizens

Source: Three-City Study

June 1997 - June 2006, administrative report

Figure 1: Observed participation in Food Stamp Program

among administrative records sample, quarterly data

Figure 1 presents quarterly averages of enrollment in the Food Stamp Program for 

households headed by U.S.-born or non-citizen caregivers between June 1997 and June 2006. 

Quarters begin in January, April, July, and October of each year. (June 1997 stands on its own in 

the graphs.) The line marked by circles represents quarter-to-quarter changes in enrollment 

among U.S.-born caregiver households, and the line marked by squares represents quarterly 

changes for non-citizen caregiver households. The linear trend line associated with each set of 

points represents summarizes the general trend in participation for each group. The X-axis shows 

calendar quarters and is marked to show April 2003, when eligibility was restored for legal 

immigrants in the United States for at least five years, and October 2003, when eligibility was 

restored for all legal immigrants under 18. The Y-axis shows proportions enrolled in a given 

quarter.

Overall, the graph shows a declining trend in enrollment for households headed by U.S.-born 

caregivers over the 9-year period. Participation among households headed by non-citizen 
17

caregivers fluctuated more over that period, peaking in the late 1990’s and then steadily falling 

until late 2000. Participation rates increased slowly over the next two years and then fell again 

until October 2003, when the Farm Bill Act was broadly implemented. Shortly thereafter, 

participation rates jumped about 10 percentage points and remained elevated until the end of the 

data series in June 2006.

0 .02 .04 .06 .08

Monthly entries (proportion)

Jun 97Jan 01Jan 02Jan 03Apr 03Oct 03

Jan 05Jun 06

Month (6/97-6/06)

US-born Noncitizens

Source: Three-City Study

June 1997 - June 2006, administrative report

Figure 2: Observed entries into Food Stamp Program

among administrative records sample, quarterly data

Figure 2 summarizes changes in quarterly entrance rates for households with U.S.-born or 

non-citizen caregivers from June 1997 to June 2006. The pattern echoes that for participation 

rates over that period. Enrollment among households with U.S.-born caregivers declined overall, 

although there were periodic spikes in enrollment. Again, enrollment among households with 

non-citizen caregivers fluctuated more, although the quarter-to-quarter variations diminished 

later in the period. In regard to the main research question, it is important to note that enrollment 

increased only for non-citizen headed households immediately after full implementation of the 
18

Farm Bill Act in October 2003. 

0 .02 .04 .06 .08

Quarterly exits (proportion)

Jun 97Jan 01

Jan 02Jan 03 Apr 03

Oct 03

Jan 05Jun 06

Month (6/97-6/06)

US-born Noncitizens

Source: Three-City Study

June 1997 - June 2006, administrative report

Figure 3: Observed exits from Food Stamp Program

among administrative records sample, by quarter

Figure 3 summarizes changes in quarterly exit rates for households with U.S.-born or noncitizen caregivers over the 9-year period. Exit rates for U.S.-born-headed households peaked in 

mid-2001, when about 5 percent of recipients exited each quarter, and then declined by about 

one percentage point and held roughly steady over the rest of the period. Foreign-born-headed 

households fluctuated more, but reached a low point shortly after October 2003. Their exit rates

increased again to a quarterly exit rate comparable to that for U.S.-born households in 2005 and 

2006. 

Longitudinal models of enrollment

Table 3 summarizes results from Cox proportional hazard models estimating the hazard 

rate of entry into the Food Stamp Program. 
19

Table 3. Cox proportional hazard model predicting the risk of entering the Food Stamp

Program, June 1997-June 2006 (model coefficients with standard errors beneath)

Model 

1 

Model 

2

Model 

3 

Naturalized citizen

Caregiver's 

nativity/citizenshi

p status (vs. USborn)

-1 † -0.79 -0.77 

0.57 0.59 0.61 

Noncitizen -0.24 -0.02 -0.06 

0.29 0.3 0.33 

Born in Puerto Rico -0.01 -0.03 -0.09 

0.38 0.4 0.44 

No. of prior FSP entries 0.84 *** 0.88 *** 0.89 ***

0.06 0.05 0.05 

April 2003- Sept. 2003

Historical time 

(vs. June 1997-

Mar. 2003)

0.24 0.39 0.39 

0.25 0.24 0.24 

Oct. 2003 - Mar. 2004 -0.14 0.09 0.08 

0.3 0.29 0.29 

April 2004 - June 2006 -0.65 ** -0.47 † -0.47 † 

0.24 0.26 0.26 

Noncitizen * April-Sept. 2003

Interactions

-0.69 -1.03 -1.07 

1.1 0.99 0.99 

Noncitizen * Oct 2003-Mar. 2004 1.24 * 1.02 0.98 

0.57 0.63 0.63 

Noncitizen*April 2004-June 2006 0.58 0.08 0.08 

0.63 0.71 0.72 

Caregiver's age

Family 

composition

-0.03 * -0.03 * 

0.01 0.01 

Age of youngest child in household 0 0 

0.02 0.02 

Focal child's age 0.03 0.03 

0.03 0.03 

Caregiver is cohabiting (vs. single) 0.24 0.26 

0.21 0.2 

Caregiver is married (vs. single) 0.11 0.13 

0.19 0.19 

Household receiving TANF

Household 

economy

1.7 *** 1.66 ***

0.2 0.21 

Caregiver is employed -0.56 ** -0.55 ** 

0.19 0.19 

Household below federal poverty level @ w1 0.37 0.37 

0.26 0.26 

Caregiver is non-Hispanic black (vs. white)

Controls

0.09 

0.3 

Caregiver is Hispanic 0.06 

0.35 

Household in Chicago (vs. Boston) -0.16 

0.22 

Household in San Antonio (vs. Boston) -0.15 

0.26 

Chi-square 271.63 527.12 528.47 

Person-years 28026 28026 28026 
20

Model 1 includes indicators of the household head’s nativity and citizenship status (U.S.-born 

households are the excluded category), a count of the number of prior entries in the Food Stamp 

Program that the household had in the observed period, indicators of historical time (compared to 

the period prior to April 2003), and interactions between non-citizen status and historical time. 

There are no direct effects of nativity/citizenship status, and all households experienced a dropoff 

in enrollment after March 2004. Interaction terms show that for noncitizens only, there is a 

statistically significant increase (p<.05) in the risk of enrolling in the Food Stamp Program

between October 2003 and March 2004. This is evidence of a period-specific spike in enrollment 

for non-citizens only in the six-month period following full implementation of the Farm Bill Act. 

The lack of significance in the interaction term for the following period (April 2004 – June 2006) 

suggests that the relative increase in noncitizens’ Food Stamp Program enrollment was 

temporary, rather than sustained. 

Model 2 includes covariates related to family composition (caregiver’s age, focal child 

age, age of youngest child in household, and caregiver’s marital status) and the household 

economy (TANF participation, employment status, and poverty level at wave 1). When these 

attributes are accounted for, the interaction term between noncitizen status and the six-month 

period following the full implementation Farm Bill Act is statistically insignificant (B=1.02, 

p=.105). Stepwise regressions (not shown) suggest that income-related factors including TANF 

receipt, poverty status at wave 1, and employment status have a stronger attenuating effect on the 

interaction term than do family composition factors like marital status, the age of the focal child, 

or the age of the youngest child in the household. Concurrent enrollment in the TANF program is 
21

the strongest predictor of food stamp receipt. These results together suggest that implementation 

the Farm Bill Act enabled noncitizens already enrolled in TANF to begin receiving Food Stamps 

as well. 

Model 3 includes race/ethnicity and city of residence. Including these items improves 

model fit but does not change the relationship between citizenship status, historical time, and 

Food Stamp Program enrollment described in model 2.

Longitudinal models of program exit

Figure 3 shows that Food Stamp Program exit rates for U.S.-born caregivers’ households 

peaked around 2001 and then trended downward. Exit rates fluctuated for noncitizen caregivers’

households until 2005, when they stabilized at a rate similar to U.S.-born caregivers’ households. 

The post-2001 downward trend for U.S.-born caregivers is reflected in the multivariate analysis

summarized in table 3: in model 1, the main effect of historical time (i.e., the effect for U.S.-born 

caregivers) for the period after March 2004 is negative and statistically significant at p<.05, 

indicating a lower risk of exiting the Food Stamp Program compared to the period prior to April 

2003. This period effect becomes more pronounced and significant (p<.01) when indicators of 

family composition and the household economy are added in model 2. In addition, the period 

between October 2003 and March 2004 is also associated with a lower rate of exit (p<.05).

The interaction terms across the three models in table 3 indicate that noncitizens were 

similar to U.S.-born caregivers’ households in their exit patterns over historical time. In other 

words, while there is some evidence in table 2 that noncitizen households were unique in their 

increased likelihood of Food Stamp Program enrollment shortly after the Farm Bill Act went into 

effect, their patterns of exit are not distinct compared to U.S.-born caregivers’ households. The 

strongest predictors of Food Stamp Program exit are TANF non-participation and employment. 
22

Table 4. Cox proportional hazard model predicting the risk of exiting the Food Stamp

Program, June 1997-June 2006 (model coefficients with standard errors beneath)

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 

Caregiver's Naturalized citizen

nativity/citizenship 

status (vs. USborn)

0.37 0.27 0.08 

0.32 0.34 0.41 

Noncitizen -0.03 -0.33 -0.64 

0.4 0.42 0.51 

Born in Puerto Rico -0.49 -0.21 -0.49 

0.46 0.42 0.49 

No. of prior FSP exits 0.75 *** 0.7 *** 0.73 ***

0.07 0.07 0.07 

Historical time April 2003- Sept. 2003

(vs. June 1997-

Mar. 2003)

0.11 -0.15 -0.21 

0.34 0.32 0.33 

Oct. 2003 - Mar. 2004 -0.56 -0.86 * -0.94 * 

0.41 0.38 0.38 

April 2004 - June 2006 -0.61 * -0.9 *** -0.97 ***

0.27 0.25 0.25 

Interactions Noncitizen * April-Sept. 2003 -0.65 -0.68 -0.62 

1.11 1.11 1.11 

Noncitizen * Oct 2003-Mar. 2004 0.2 0.2 0.3 

1.16 1.16 1.16 

Noncitizen*April 2004-June 2006 -0.52 -0.47 -0.37 

0.59 0.58 0.58 

Family Caregiver's age

composition

 0.01 0 

 0.01 0.01 

Age of youngest child in household 0.01 0.01 

0.02 0.02 

Focal child's age 0 0.01 

0.02 0.03 

Caregiver is cohabiting (vs. single) -0.47 † -0.43 † 

0.25 0.24 

Caregiver is married (vs. single) 0.2 0.32 

0.27 0.27 

Household Household receiving TANF

economy

-1.66 *** -1.86 ***

0.27 0.27 

Caregiver is employed 0.42 * 0.41 * 

0.17 0.17 

Household below federal poverty level @ w1 -0.23 -0.24 

0.23 0.23 

Controls Caregiver is non-Hispanic black (vs. white) 0.38 

0.32 

Caregiver is Hispanic 0.13 

0.36 

Household in Chicago (vs. Boston) -0.79 ** 

0.25 

Household in San Antonio (vs. Boston) -0.9 ***

0.26 

Chi-square 176.12 337.66 341.31 

Person-years 29852 29852 29852 
23

In addition, results presented in model 3 indicate that families in Chicago and San Antonio were 

less likely to exit the Food Stamp Program than were families in Boston.

The purpose of this paper was to consider whether the reinstatement of food stamp eligibility 

to legal immigrants under the Farm Bill Act of 2002 led to increased enrollment in the Food 

Stamp Program among households that include foreign-born, noncitizen caregivers and U.S.-

born children. While all U.S.-born children remained eligible for food stamps after welfare 

reform in 1996, legal immigrants became ineligible, and observers have hypothesized that 

differences in eligibility within a mixed-status household would lead to underuse of the program 

by eligible children if their immigrant parents were not themselves eligible to apply. 

Discussion

To address this question, the current study compared participation, enrollment, and exit rates 

among households with foreign-born, Puerto Rican-born, or U.S. mainland-born caregivers 

where at least one child was born in the United States over a 9-year period from June 1997 to 

June 2006. The analytic sample comes from a study of low-income children and families in three 

U.S. cities followed from February 1999 to February 2006. Data on Food Stamp Program 

participation were drawn from administrative records for the 75 percent of study participants 

who consented to record collection during the third wave of the study.

Results suggest that the Farm Bill Act was effective in enrolling low-income mixed status 

households in the six-month period immediately after its full implementation in October 2003. 

Since implementation, noncitizen-caregiver households have become more likely to receive food 

stamps than are households headed by naturalized caregivers, but noncitizens’ households 

continue to have lower rates of receipt than do low-income households headed by U.S.-born 
24

caregivers. The overall pattern of enrollment by mixed status households suggests that the Farm 

Bill Act immediately satisfied some unmet need for food stamps among families who were 

already in the public assistance system as TANF recipients. Following that period, there was a 

slower but steady uptake in food stamp enrollment through June 2006 that was on a par with 

entrance rates for U.S. citizens. Immediately after the Farm Bill Act went into effect, average 

monthly exit rates were higher for U.S.-born caregivers than for noncitizen caregiver households, 

but exit rates for the two groups have since achieved parity, and by 2006, the two groups 

paralleled each other in their quarterly participation rates in the Food Stamp program (see figure 

1).

Nearly all of the families in the study had been in the United States for at least five years 

when the Farm Bill Act went into effect, meaning that they became eligible to enroll during the 

first phase of the Act’s implementation in April 2003. One possible explanation for the lag in 

uptake is that information about the Act might have begun to spread only after full 

implementation in October. For example, state agencies might have held off on broadly 

advertising expanded eligibility until all of the phases to broaden the program had been 

implemented, perhaps to avoid receiving and rejecting applications from families with minor 

immigrants who had been in the United States fewer than five years during the first phase of 

implementation. Alternatively, news might have spread by word of mouth more effectively once 

the Act was fully implemented. Another explanation is that the application and processing stages 

to begin transferring benefits to families might have taken several months after legal immigrants 

initially became eligible to enroll, so that even early adopters did not show up in the rolls until 

Fall 2003.
25

This study has several limitations. First, it is representative only of low-income families in 

low-income neighborhoods in three U.S. cities. However, those cities represent a microcosm of 

the variety of policies to which immigrants were exposed following welfare reform in terms of 

the availability of state-funded substitutes. In addition, the Three-City Study has a relatively 

large proportion of foreign-born cases included in its low-income sample, which provides 

statistical power and explorations of within-group variation that are infeasible in even large, 

nationally representative studies. 

Second, the study would benefit from an improved definition of means-tested eligibility to 

participate in the Food Stamp Program. Because the study lacks continuous data on employment, 

earnings, assets, and family size over the 9-year period of observation, we cannot directly 

observe time-varying income eligibility. We have identified measures that indirectly capture 

means-tested eligibility, including TANF enrollment. This measure is flawed in that while it does 

indicate income eligibility, it does not capture eligible families who are not enrolled in that

program. Our other time-varying, indirect measure of eligibility is caregiver’s employment 

status, which behaves as expected in our multivariate models, with working caregivers less likely 

to enter and more likely to exit the Food Stamp Program compared to non-workers. 

Sponsor deeming is a dimension of eligibility that is salient to the foreign-born caregiver 

population and that we are unable to capture in our household-based study. A challenge to 

researchers focusing on noncitizen caregivers’ eligibility for public assistance is to effectively 

model sponsors’ income and to account for how it is figured into a noncitizen caregiver’s 

application for public assistance. Such an effort may require a study design focused exclusively 

on legal immigrants, like the New Immigrant Study.
26

Third, while administrative records are considered superior to self-report data in terms of 

accuracy and completeness, respondents who consent to share their administrative records are 

distinct from those who decline, so some amount of bias is introduced into the study design. We 

were able to define this bias to some extent by comparing observable characteristics among the 

included and excluded households in our analytic sample. We found that households that were 

excluded from the administrative records file were somewhat more advantaged in that they were 

more likely to include married or cohabiting partners, less likely to be in poverty at wave 1, and 

more likely to include an employed caregiver compared to the analytic sample. In some ways, 

this pattern of exclusion is reassuring, in that we may infer that the sample we are working with 

is more likely to include households that are income-eligible for the Food Stamp Program. 

Prior work not shown here has compared the pattern of food stamp use described in the 

administrative records data to that described in respondents’ self reports. The comparison yields 

a surprising number of discrepancies, with the self-report data suggesting lower Food Stamp 

Program enrollment rates and substantially different timing for entries and exits. A next step is to 

investigate patterns in these discrepancies, including to identify correlates of seam bias (the 

tendency for respondents to assign last interview dates to the timing of events like program entry 

and exit), and underreporting and/or overreporting. 

Finally, we have not accounted for variation in state and federal policies or macroeconomic 

conditions over time that might have differentially affected Food Stamp Program participation 

among children with native-born or foreign-born parents. For example, biometric controls on 

food stamp receipt, such as fingerprinting, might have discouraged foreign-born parents with any 

history of undocumented immigration from applying for child benefits. In terms of 

macroeconomic factors, there is some evidence from the Three-City Study that Hispanic families 
27

(not accounting for nativity status) who had previously been on TANF were more likely to have 

moved out of poverty by the mid-2000’s compared to low-income African-American families 

from the same cities (Cherlin, Frogner, Ribar, and Moffitt 2009), in part because of more 

frequent employment and the presence of other income earners in the household. Therefore, 

variation in enrollment and participation rates by nativity status may be partly attributable to 

race-ethnic differences in economic gains following welfare reform. Future work will investigate 

how the differential impacts of policy changes and macroeconomic structure by nativity affected 

enrollment in TANF and the Food Stamp Program for mixed-status families.
28

Capps, Randolph, Michael Fix, Everett Henderson, and Jane Reardon-Anderson. 2005. "A 

Profile of Low-Income Working Immigrant Families." The Urban Institute, Washington, 

DC.

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Reardon-Anderson. 2004. "Assessing Implementation of the 2002 Farm Bill's Legal 

Immigrant Food Stamp Restorations: Final Report to the United States Department of 

Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service." The Urban Institute, Washington, DC.

Capps, Randolph, Leighton Ku, Michael Fix, Eve Fielder, Michael Greenwell, and Tonya Hays. 

2002. "How Are Immigrants Faring After Welfare Reform? Preliminary Evidence from 

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Cherlin, Andrew, Bianca Frogner, David Ribar, and Robert Moffitt. 2009. "Welfare Reform in 

the Mid-2000s: How African American and Hispanic Families in Three Cities Are 

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—. 2004. "Trends in Food Stamp Participation Rates: 1999 to 2002." Mathematica Policy 

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Cunnyngham, Karen, Laura A. Castner, and Allen L. Schirm. 2008. "State Food Stamp 

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Fix, Michael and Jeffrey Passel. 2002. "The Scope and Impact of Welfare Reform's Immigrant 

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Fomby, Paula and Andrew J. Cherlin. 2004. "Public Assistance Use among U.S.-Born Children 

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