Can the State Take the Burden? Implementation of Policies to Increase Elderly Enrollment in SNAP

Abstract

Extant literature has emphasized the role of significant inconveniences for participants as a chief reason for under-enrollment in a variety of social safety net programs. Consequently, a variety of policies have been proposed to address this issue. This paper asserts that the capacity of states, especially of frontline workers, to implement these policies should not be taken for granted. Our analysis of two policies aimed at increasing elderly participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program suggests that policies that increased burdens for frontline workers were implemented less faithfully and more unevenly, possibly leading to more administrative burden on program participants. The article proposes several methods to decrease implementation burden on frontline workers.