Language

English (en)

Publication Date

11-3-2025

Summary

When functioning correctly, the U.S. social safety net ensures that everyone can reach a basic standard of living, regardless of economic circumstances, and provides financial support to help families who have fallen on hard times due to job losses or other adverse life events. However, the programs often have complex rules around eligibility, documentation requirements, and compliance. Those features and negative experiences with program staff impose psychological costs—collectively referred to as administrative burdens—that can make enrolling and staying in the programs difficult for many families. Drawing upon data from the Workforce Economic Inclusion and Mobility Survey of a nationally representative sample of 2,511 low-wage U.S. workers with incomes below 250% of the federal poverty line, this brief builds (a) presents a new measure of administrative burden that captures multiple dimensions of learning, compliance, and psychological burdens; (b) examines differences in those burdens between the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid; (c) identifies who reports experiencing these burdens; and (d) investigates the correlation between the experience of burden in these programs and measures of health-related hardship.

Document Type

Research Brief

Category

Financial Inclusion

Subarea

Income Policy

Original Citation

Roll, S., Despard, M., & Chun, Y. (2025). The experience of administrative burdens in SNAP and Medicaid: New evidence from a nationally representative survey of low-wage workers (CSD Research Brief No. 25-52). Washington University, Center for Social Development. https://doi.org/10.7936/htq4-vt81

Keywords

administrative burden ; Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) ; Medicaid ; low-wage workers ; Workforce Economic Inclusion and Mobility Survey ; policy ; food insufficiency ; chronic illness ; health care hardship ;

Download

Share

COinS