Family Economics and Nutrition Review [Volume 11, Number 1-2]

              ',[R!AL'"; OEPf\RTMF.
Special Issue
Promoting Family Economic and Nutrition Security
Feature Articles
4 Maintaining Food and Nutrition Security:
The Role of the Food Stamp Program and WIC
P. Peter Basiotis, CarolS. Kramer-LeBlanc, and Eileen T Kennedy
17 Household Food Security in the United States in 1995:
Results From the Food Security Measurement Project
Margaret Andrews, Gary Bickel, and Steven Carlson
29 Do Child Support Awards Cover the Cost of Raising Children?
MarkLino
41 Child Care and Welfare Reform
MarkLino
49 Discussion Paper on Domestic Food Security
CarolS. Kramer-LeBlanc and Kathryn McMurry, Editors
Research Summaries
79 Regional Differences in Family Poverty
84 Work Schedules of Low-Educated American Women and Welfare Reform
86 Family Finances in the U.S.: Recent Evidence From the Survey of
Consumer Finances
Regular Items
90 Charts From Federal Data Sources
92 Research and Evaluation Activities in USDA
95 Cost of Food at Home
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Volume 11, Numbers 1&2
1998
Dan Glickman, Secretary
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Shirley R. Watkins, Under Secretary
Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services
Rajen Anand, Executive Director
Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion
Carol S. Kramer-LeBlanc, Deputy Executive Director
Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion
P. Peter Basiotis, Director
Nutrition Policy and Analysis Staff
TRIBUTE
To
Joan Courtless, Edit.or
Family Economics and Nutrition Review
1986-1997
This issue is dedicated to Joan Courtless, who recently
retired as editor of Family Economics and Nutrition
Review. Joan was the editor of the journal from 1986 to
1997. As editor, she made many significant and positive
contributions to the journal. She oversaw the transition
from Family Economic.s Review to Family Economics
and Nutrition Review, with its greater emphasis on matters
of nutrition and nutrition policy. She gqided the journal
in the direction of soliciting and reviewing externally
authored articles. She herself authored numerous articles,
many dealing with clothing issues, and she edited the
50th anniversary issue of the journal. Colleagues and
readers associated with the journal will miss Joan and
wish her the best.
Editor-in-Chief
Carol S. Kramer-LeBlanc
Editor
Julia M. Dinkins
Special Features Editor
Mark Uno
Managing Editor
Jane W. Fleming
Family Economics and Nutrition Review is written
and publis'hed each quarter by the Center for
Nutrition Policy and Promotion, U.S. Department of
Agriculture, Washington, DC.
The Secretary of Agriculture has determined that
publication of this periodical is necessary in the
transaction of the public busiless required by law
of the Department.
This publication is not copyrighted. Contents may
be reprinted without permission, but credit to
Family Economics and Nutrition Review would
be appreciated. Use of commercial or trade names
does not imply approval or constitute endorsement
by USDA. Family Economics and Nutrition Review
is indexed in the following databases: AGRICOlA,
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(See subscription form on p. 96.)
Original manuscripts are accepted for publication.
(See "guidelines for authors" on back inside cover).
Suggestions or comments concerning this publica­tion
should be addressed to: Julia M. Dinkins,
Ed~or, Family Economics and Nutrition Review,
Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, USDA,
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Opportunity provider and employer.
Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion
PRop~n.'l"l ..
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LIBR4Rv
ot.~c 4 ... 1998
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Speciirq~ue
Promoting Family Economic and Nutrition Security
Feature Articles
4 Maintaining Food and Nutrition Security:
The Role of the Food Stamp Program and WIC
P. Peter Basiotis, CarolS. Kramer-LeBlanc, and Eileen T. Kennedy
17 Household Food Security in the United States in 1995:
Results From the Food Security Measurement Project
Margaret Andrews, Gary Bickel, and Steven Carlson
29 Do Child Support Awards Cover the Cost of Raising
Children?
Mark Lino
41 Child Care and Welfare Reform
MarkLino
49 Discussion Paper on Domestic Food Security
CarolS. Kramer-LeBlanc and Kathryn McMurry, Editors
Research Summaries
79
84
86
Regional Differences in Family Poverty
Work Schedules of Low-Educated American Women and
Welfare Reform
Family Finances in the U.S.: Recent Evidence From the
Survey of Consumer Finances
Regular Items
90 Charts From Federal Data Sources
92 Research and Evaluation Activities in USDA
95 Cost of Food at Home
Volume 11, Numbers 1&2
1998
PROMOTING FAMILY ECONOMIC AND NUTRITION SECURITY
Family Economics and Nutrition Review: Special Issue
(Volume 11, Numbers 1&2)
Introduction-Opportunities During an Era of Change
CarolS. Kramer-LeBlanc
In August 1996, the 1 04th Congress enacted and the
President signed into law the Personal Responsibility
and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. The legisla­tion
replaced Federal welfare payments under the Aid
to Families With Dependent Children Program with a
block grant program known as the Temporary Assistance
for Needy Families Program (TANF). This program
gives greater flexibility to States to set benefit levels,
establish eligibility criteria, and determine the benefit
blend. Welfare reform has altered more than 40 years
of social welfare policy to move people from welfare to
work and reduce the Federal budget deficit. New welfare­to-
work policies can influence significantly the well­being
of over 30 million people in the United States. The
challenge for all is to ensure that welfare reform works,
and that both family economic security and food and
nutrition security are maintained and enhanced as the
United States approaches the year 2000.
This special, double issue considers family economic
and nutrition security. We are pleased to include some
important articles that address significant aspects of this
topic. Included are the following:
2
"Maintaining Food and Nutrition Security:
The Role of the Food Stamp Program and WIC,"
by P. Peter Basiotis, CarolS. Kramer-LeBlanc, and
Eileen T. Kennedy of the Center for Nutrition Policy
and Promotion (Basiotis and Kramer-LeBlanc) and
Research, Education, and Economics (Kennedy), respec­tively,
USDA. This article examines the contribution of
the Food Stamp Program (FSP) and The Special Supple­mental
Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children
(WIC) to maintaining the nutrition security/diet quality
of low-income participant households. This issue is
important to examine in the context of recent welfare
policy reforms that have emphasized moving people
from welfare to work and have replaced the Federal Aid
to Families With Dependent Children Program with the
more limited State-administered Temporary Assistance
to Needy Families Program. Federal food assistance
programs were retained as a nutritional safety net, but
in some cases, access and benefits have been restricted.
The paper examines the hypothesis that participation
in the FSP and/or WIC is an important factor in main­taining
and improving the dietary quality of low-income
households.
Family Economics and Nutrition Review
"Household Food Security in the United States
in 1995: Results From the Food Security
Measurement Project," by Margaret Andrews,
Gary Bickel, and Steven Carlson, economists at the
Office of Analysis and Evaluation of the Food and Nutrition
Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. This article
reports important results from the landmark effort to
measure food insecurity in the United States. Results
have not been reported previously in a peer-reviewed
journal and are of broad interest to the policy community.
These results will contribute to the baseline against
which progress in achieving food security in the
United States will be measured.
"Do Child Support Awards Cover the Cost of
Raising Children?" by Mark Lino of the Center for
Nutrition Policy and Promotion, USDA. Lino examines
the adequacy of child support awards to single parents.
Whereas welfare reform legislation has focused on child
support payment enforcement to improve the well-being
of children, Lino points out that awards need to assist
single parents in meeting the costs of raising children.
Comparing USDA estimates of expenditures on children
with average full child support payments indicates that
full payments only cover a small proportion of the total
cost of raising children.
1998 Vol. 11 Nos. 1 &2
"Child Care and Welfare Reform," by Mark Lino
of the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, USDA.
Lino reviews provisions of the Personal Responsibility
and Work Opportunity Act affecting child care. Because
the Welfare Reform Act establishes mandatory work
requirements, sufficient quantity and quality of child
care is crucial for the welfare of children and society and
the success of welfare reform policy measures. In addi­tion
to the legislation, Lino reviews selected State child
care initiatives.
"Discussion Paper on Domestic Food Security,"
edited by CarolS. Kramer-LeBlanc and Kathryn McMuny
for the Domestic Subgroup of the U.S. Interagency Working
Group on Food Security. The Domestic Secretariat that
developed this broadly reviewed discussion paper con­sists
of the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion,
USDA, and the Office of Disease Prevention and Health
Promotion, HHS. We are including the discussion paper
to make it available to as broad a readership as possible,
and we believe it may be of particular interest to the
readership ofFENR. The paper was developed in 1997-98
in response to the World Food Summit held in November
1996 in Rome that focused the world's attention on chronic
problems of hunger and undernutrition internationally
and in the United States.
We at the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion
and at the Family Economics and Nutrition Review are
pleased to bring you this special issue. We welcome
your comments, and we hope that you will send us your
articles. I would like to thank our retired editor Joan C.
Courtless for her years of service and welcome the new
editor Julia M. Dinkins.
3
4
Maintaining Nutrition Security
and Diet Quality: The Role
of the Food Stamp Program
and WIC
P. Peter Basi otis
USDA, Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion
Carol S. Kramer-LeBlanc
USDA, Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion
Eileen T. Kennedy
USDA, Research, Education, and Economics
We examine the contribution of the Food Stamp Program (FSP) and the
Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to
the nutrition security and diet quality of low-income participating households.
This information can improve future monitoring of the effects of welfare policy
reforms. Welfare reform has emphasized moving people from welfare to
work and modifying or eliminating many former entitlement programs. However,
after debate, Federal food assistance programs were retained as a nutritional
safety net, although in some cases access and benefits were restricted. Using
historical consumption data (CSFII 1989-91 ), we examine the hypothesis
that participation in the FSP and/or WIC is an important factor in maintaining
and improving the diet quality of low-income households. Using USDA's
Healthy Eating Index (HEI), as an indicator of overall diet quality, and its 10
component indices, we estimate for the first time overall diet quality effects
of changes in FSP and WIC participation and benefit levels. (The HEI permits
us to examine diet quality as nutritionists see it-with some foods consumed
too little and others too much.) Results suggest that both programs contribute
significantly to maintaining and improving the nutritional well-being of low­income
households, considering both quantity and quality of diet oomponents.
We believe the implication is that these food assistance programs help
low-income households achieve nutrition security-including improved diet
quality-and that their support provides a critical safety net to accompany
welfare reform.
Family Economics and Nutrition Review
ITJ o examine relationships
between diet quality and
food program participation,
we use USDA's 1989-91
Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by
Individuals (CSFII) to analyze how the
diet quality of low-income households
is affected by participation in the Food
Stamp Program (FSP) and the Special
Supplemental Nutrition Program for
Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
The measure of diet quality used is the
USDA Healthy Eating Index (HEI),
developed to assess the overall quality
of individuals' diets, defined as the de
gree of adherence to Federal nutritional
guidance ( 12,22). The Index consists
of 10 equally weighted components
that reflect how well individual diets
conform to both the 1995 Dietary Guide­lines
for Americans (26) and the USDA
Food Guide Pyramid (25) recommenda­tions.
Use of this index permits us to ex
amine changes in diet quality associated
with program benefits that may involve
consuming less of particular dietary
components and more of others.
For the first time, this article reports
how responsive the HEI and its individual
components are to participation in the
FSP and WIC. To provide a context
for the analysis that follows, we briefly
describe the FSP and WIC within the
framework of Federal food assistance.
We then mention pertinent elements
of welfare reform and food assistance
program changes to indicate how legis­lative
provisions may affect food assis­tance
program participants. We present
methods and results and discuss
implications.
1998 Vol. 11 Nos. 1 &2
Overview and Background on
Food Programs and Welfare
Reform Context
The United States has a longstanding
commitment to supporting food and
nutrition security. Fourteen domestic
food assistance programs comprise the
formal Federal food and nutrition safety
net and provide low-income consumers
with foods, or with expanded means
to purchase food products, along with
nutrition information and education
(table 1, p. 6).
Among the "modern" Federal programs
that began in 1945 with the National
School Lunch Program and, 53 years
later, have grown to provide about $37
billion annually (23 ), FSP and WIC are
arguably the most significant in terms
of benefits transferred and nutritional
vulnerability of recipients, respectively.
Advocates of the food assistance pro­grams
contend that they improve par­ticipants'
diet quality and ameliorate
public health. Despite welfare reform
in late 1996, the structure of the Federal
food programs was essentially preserved.
However, FSP eligibility criteria and
benefit levels were severely curtailed
for some key groups-including legal
immigrants and able-bodied adults
without dependents-and results of
this analysis raise concerns about the
potential, negative effects on diet quality
of affected groups when, or if, access to
these two important food and nutrition
programs is reduced.
The FSP, an entitlement program, is
the main food security program for low­income
households and provides coupons
or electronic benefit cards to enhance
recipients' food purchasing power and
nutritional status. By FY 1996, the FSP
provided $24.3 billion in benefits to an
average of 10 million households and
25.5 million individuals. In FY 1996,
the average monthly benefit received
was more than $73 per person and more
than $172 per household (24). Over
80 percent of Food Stamp households
contain either a child, elder, or disabled
person, and 42 percent are single-parent
households (24).
WIC is targeted to pregnant and post­partum
(including breast-feeding) mothers,
infants, and children up to 5 years of
age at nutritional risk and serves more
than 7 million people each month at an
annual program cost of about $3.7 bil­lion.
WIC provides a combination of
services including nutrient-dense food
packages, nutrition counseling, and ac­cess
to health services. Approximately
45 percent of all infants and 25 percent
of all pregnant women in the United
States participate in the WIC Program
( 11 ). The value of the average 1995
WIC food package was $43.12 per
month, and the average monthly infant
food package was $73.74 (24). The
most common foods included in the
WIC packages are milk, cheese, infant
formula, cereal for adults and infants,
juice, peanut butter, dried beans, and
eggs. In 1992, a WIC Farmers' Market
Nutrition Program was created to pro­vide
additional coupons to WIC partici­pants,
which can be used to purchase
fresh fruits and vegetables in farmers'
markets. This is a relatively minor share
of the WIC Program, constituting only
about $7 million of the $3.7 billion total
WIC benefits.
5
Table 1. Federal food assistance programs
Year FY 1996 budget FY 1996
Program name begun (in millions) Participation
National School Lunch Program 1945 $4,313 24,050,000 bunches
per day
Special Milk Program 1955 $16.8 144,246,000 total served
Food Stamp Program 1961 pilot $24,330 25,540,000 recipients
1974 permanent per month
Nutrition Program for the Elderly 1965 $150 245,979,000 total meals
School Breakfast Program 1966 pilot $1,118 6,103,000 daily average
1975 permanent breakfasts served
Summer Food Service Program 1968 $258 2,216,000 daily average
attendance (July)
Commodity Supplemental Food Program 1968 $100.2 357,000 average
participation
Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants, 1972 pilot $3,730 Average participation
and Children (WIC) 1974 permanent 1,648,000 (women)
1,827,000 (infants)
3,712,000 (children)
Child and Adult Care Food Program 1975 pilot $1,553 2,343,000 August average
1978 permanent 1,546,171,000 total
1989 adults meals served
Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations 1977 $70 120,000 average
The Emergency Food Assistance Program 1981 $44 40,899,000 total pounds
distributed
Nutrition Assistance Program for Puerto Rico 1981 $1,153 Not available
Homeless Children Program 1989 $3 Not available
WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program 1992 $7 742,000 Federal
(of WIC total) 364,000 Non-Federal
Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition SeTllice. 1998. Administrative data.
6 Family Economics and Nutrition Review
The FSP and the WIC Program share
some commonalities. Each transfers
benefits to low-income individuals to
enhance food consumption and diet
quality. As an entitlement program, the
FSP conveys food purchasing power to
any low-income individual who meets
eligibility criteria (based on means
testing). Food purchases are relatively
unrestricted. Nutrition education is a
much smaller component of the FSP
than of the WIC Program. By contrast,
the WIC Program is not an entitlement
program but targets specific priority
subgroups ofthe low-income population
as funds are appropriated. WIC provides
vouchers for purchase of one of seven
food baskets selected to be nutrient­dense
and to supply specific nutrients
deficient in the diets of the target par­ticipants.
Unlike the FSP, WIC includes
individual nutrition counseling along
with a referral to other subsidized health
services.
Evaluations of the effects of the two
programs suggest generally that they
have been successful. Food consump­tion
surveys show that diets of the poor
improved markedly between 1965-66
and 1977-78, a period marked by nation­wide
expansion of the FSP (5). Numerous
studies have shown that the FSP has
succeeded in transferring purchasing
power to low-income consumers and
has increased food expenditures and
nutrient availability relative to the
transfer of cash benefits ( 3, 7, 14,15 ).
1998 Vol. 11 Nos. 1&2
Seventeen studies summarized by
Fraker and cited by Rossi yielded
estimates that out of each food stamp
dollar, between $0.17 and $0.49 was
spent on home-consumed food ("best
estimate, $0.30") compared with only
$0.05 to $0.10 of each dollar of cash
benefits transferred. Fraker found that
food stamp participation significantly
increased the household availability of
calcium, vitamin C, and iron. Far fewer
studies have demonstrated the link be­tween
program participation, individual
intake data, and improved nutritional
status. WIC Program evaluations from
the inception have demonstrated WIC
effectiveness in increasing birth weight,
decreasing incidence of low birth weight
and prematurity, improving hematological
status, and/or improving nutrient intake
(11,18,19).
Recent welfare reform includes replace­ment
of Federal welfare payments with
block grants to States (Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families Program,
or T ANF), welfare time limits and caps,
and State discretion among benefit types,
levels, and eligibility standards. States
are encouraged to promote work and
move recipients from welfare to work.
Legal immigrants were made ineligible
for Federal T ANF benefits. Major food
assistance program changes passed in
1996 included reductions in food stamp
benefits for able-bodied adults without
dependents and elimination of Federal
food stamps for most legal immigrants.
(The President's 1998 Budget restores
some immigrant FSP benefits.) In the
welfare reform context, if lost food
assistance and welfare benefits are
replaced by increased earnings or other
income, then net effects on dietary
status may be more modest. If, however,
food and welfare assistance losses are
not offset, effects found here are likely
to be illustrative.
Methodology
We use the Healthy Eating Index devel­oped
by the USDA Center for Nutrition
Policy and Promotion as the indicator of
individual and household overall diet
quality. Based on the 1995 Dietary
Guidelines for Americans and the Food
Guide Pyramid (FGP), this index almost
alone focuses on the consumption of
foods rather than nutrients. Few indices
focusing on the total diet exist ( 1 ,2, 17,21)
and most of these-with the exception
of Patterson et al.-focus exclusively on
consumption of nutrients.
The Healthy Eating Index has 10
equally weighted components, each
based on different aspects of a healthful
diet. The score of each component
ranges between zero and 10 and the
overall index, from zero to 100. The
components can be grouped in terms
of those that relate to adequacy or suffi­ciency,
to moderation, and to variety
in the diet. Specifically, Components 1
through 5 measure the degree to which a
person's diet contains adequate servings of
the 5 major food groups depicted in
the FGP: Grains, vegetables, fruits,
milk, and meats. Components 6 through
9 measure how well recommendations
to moderate fat, saturated fat, sodium,
and cholesterol are met. Component 6
is based on total fat consumption as a
percentage of total food energy intake;
component 7 is based on saturated fat
consumption as a percentage of total
food energy intake; component 8 is based
on cholesterol intake; and component 9
is based on sodium intake. Finally, com­ponent
10 reflects the amount of variety
in a person's diet. The HEI does not set
overall limits on food energy consumed.
7
An individual's score in any of the food
group components is based on the pro­portion
of the recommended number of
servings consumed for a given energy
intake level. For instance, the average
energy allowance for a 40-year-old
female is 2,200 kilocalories, and the
FGP indicates that at this energy level,
4 servings of vegetables per day are
recommended. If a 40-year-old female
consumes the recommended number
of servings, she receives the maximum
score of 10 in the vegetable category.
A person who consumes the recom­mended
number of servings from any
food group receives a maximum compo­nent
score of 10. A person consuming
no servings from a food group receives
the minimum score of zero. Between
zero and 10, the component score is
calculated proportionately; for example,
a person needing 6 servings from the
grain category who consumed only half
that many would achieve a score of 5.
Food serving amounts were computed
from food consumption data using
factors derived from the serving size
assumptions given in the FGP.
Calculation of scores for all food group
(adequacy) components followed this
procedure with actual servings com­pared
with recommended servings based
on the FGP. In each food group, once
the maximum recommended number
of servings is achieved, neither further
credit nor penalties are awarded for
additional servings consumed.
Components 6 to 9 measure moderation
in the diet and are scored differently.
Component 6 reflects how well total
fat is limited in the diet: A score of 10
8
means total fat intake as a proportion of
energy intake is 30 percent or Jess. The
score declines to zero when this propor­tion
reaches 45 percent. Between these
two points, the scores decline propor­tionately.
The score for saturated fat
(component 7) is computed analogously
to that for total fat, with a maximum
score achieved at a ratio of less than
10 percent of energy from saturated fat
and zero when the ratio is 15 percent or
greater.
The component scores for cholesterol
and sodium are each based on milli­grams
consumed. Cutoff points for a
perfect score of I 0 are set at 300 mg
for cholesterol and 2,400 mg for sodium.
The corresponding zero points are 450
mg and 4,800 mg for cholesterol and
sodium, respectively.
Finally, the Dietary Guidelines, as well
as the National Academy of Sciences'
Diet and Health Report ( 16), stress the
importance of variety in the diet to help
ensure that people get the nutrients they
need. To assess variety, counting the
total number of different foods eaten
by an individual that contribute substan­tially
to meeting one or more of the 5
food group requirements is necessary.
Foods consumed were counted only
if they amounted to at least one-half
serving in any one food group. Identical
food items eaten on separate occasions
are summed before imposing the one­half
serving cut-off. Similar foods such
as two different forms of potatoes or two
different forms of white bread count
only once in the variety category. Mix­tures
are decomposed into constituent
parts, meaning that a single food mix­ture
(such as lasagna) could contribute
2 or more points to the variety index
(contributing to both grain and meat,
for example).
In the variety category, a person attains
a score of 10 if 16 or more different
foods are eaten over a 3-day period. If
6 or fewer distinct foods are eaten over
a 3-day period, the individual earns zero.
Here again, little guidance was available
to suggest upper or lower limits in scoring
variety; similar to categories 6 to 9, the
limits for variety were derived by explo­ration
of the consumption data and con­sultation
with researchers. For a more
detailed description of the construction
of the HEI, see Kennedy et al. or U.S.
Department of Agriculture ( 12,22).
Data
Data used in this study were collected
in USDA's Continuing Survey of Food
Intakes by Individuals (CSFII) 1989-91.
The CSFII provides ongoing data on
food and nutrient consumption with a
yearly sample of about 2,000 households
containing about 5,000 individuals.
In CSFII 1989-91, 3 days offood and
nutrient intake data (a 1-day recall fol­lowed
by a 2-day diary) were obtained
along with relevant demographic,
economic, and Federal food program
participation data. Food and nutrient
consumption data from a separate low­income
sample were also collected at
the same time. The survey design was
such that each year's data are nationally
representative and can be used inde­pendently;
however, the combined years
provide a larger sample size. The low­income
sample can be combined with
the all-income sample through the use
of survey weights. These survey weights
Family Economics and Nutrition Review
also adjust the survey sample to be rep­resentative
of the U.S. population living
in households. This analysis uses low­income
households with complete data
records in the combined 1989-90 sample
(N=1,438); the HEI was not available
for 1991.
Low-income households were those
with annual income of 130 percent or
less of the poverty threshold. There
were 418 households participating in
the FSP at the time of the survey. Of
those, 359 had every household member
authorized to receive food stamps. The
remaining 59 FSP households with one
or more members not authorized to re­ceive
food stamps were excluded from
the analysis so as not to confound the
relationships because of possible lea~ge
of benefits (i.e, use of food purchased
with food stamps by nonauthorized
household members). This resulted in
a final sample size of 1,379 households.
Statistical Model
A set of 11 reduced form equations was
estimated including one HEI equation
and one equation each for the 10 com­ponent
dietary scores. This Ad Hoc
reduced form specification was guided
by household production theory (6) and
previous studies of food and nutrient
consumption in order to estimate net
effects of the independent variables on
the HEI and its components (2,10,13).
Because the household is the unit of
analysis in this study, each household
member's HEI and component scores
are totaled. These aggregated scores are
the dependent variables. Independent
variables are annual household income
as a percentage of the poverty threshold;
participation in the FSP; the weekly
dollar value of food stamps received;
participation by one or more household
1998 Vol. 11 Nos. 1 &2
members in the WIC Program; house­hold
size in Thrifty Food Plan Male
Adult Equivalents (TFP MAEs);1 head­ship
status; the higher grade of formal
schooling completed by either head
of household; race; ethnic origin; geo­graphic
region and urbanization; and
tenancy status. The number of house­hold
members who did not provide
3 days of dietary intake data, and thus
lacked an HEI and component scores,
was entered in the regression equation
as an additional control. Because the
HEI is, by construction, equal to the
sum of its components, the 10 compo­nent
equations' estimated coefficients
were restricted to sum to the corre­sponding
estimated coefficient of the HEI
equation. This specification results in a
potential gain in statistical efficiency.
Restricted Ordinary Least Squares was
used to estimate the models (9) and
the SYSLIN procedure of the Statistical
Analysis System (20) performed the
estimation.
Results
Results include the means for the de­pendent
and independent variables and
the estimated regression coefficients as
shown in table 2. The means are further
subdivided by Food Stamp Program
participation status. All means are
weighted to represent population means
of low-income households, and within
those, of food stamp and nonfood stamp
participating households. Means of the
dependent variables are per person and
are shown directly under the dependent
variable name row.
1To account for the households' varying age/sex
compositions, a "Thrifty Food Plan Male Adult
Equivalent Scale" was constructed by dividing
each household member's maximum allotment
given by the Thrifty Food Plan by that of a male
20 to 50 years of age. Then, the household size in
TFP MAEs was constructed by summing over all
household members.
... the value of food
stamps received
exerts a positive and
statistically significant
effect on vegetables,
dairy, meat, and sodium
component scores ....
[and] participation in
the WIC program ... has
a very strong positive
effect on aggregate
household diet quality ....
9
Table 2. Weighted means and regression coefficients estimating relationships between household-level
Healthy Eating Index and its components by food stamp receiving households and value of
food stamps received and WIC participation controlling for other relevant variables, CSFII1989-90
Mean
All FSP NFSP
N=l,379 N=359 N=l,020 HEI Grains Vegetables
Mean for All 62.18* 5.95 5.66
Mean forFSP 60.70 5.86 5.29
Mean for NFSP 62.74 5.99 5.79
Intercept -12.69 -1.85 -0.06
0.00** 0.05 0.95
Income as percent of poverty threshold 81.89 65.71 87.93 -0.01 0.00 O.Ql
0.63 0.74 0.18
Food stamp participating household 0.27 1.00 -3.86 -0.28 -0.49
0.03 0.59 0.42
Weekly value of food stamps received 9.30 34.22 0.22 0.00 O.Q3
0.00 0.95 0.02
Household member participates in WIC 0.08 0.19 0.05 23.45 4.20 1.19
0.00 0.00 0.06
Household size in TFP MAEs 2.13 2.29 2.07 73.00 8.27 6.08
0.00 0.00 0.00
Dual-headed household 0.34 0.20 0.39 1.12 -1.30 1.66
0.54 0.01 0.01
Female-headed household 0.53 0.71 0.46 10.67 -0.19 0.92
0.00 0.67 0.07
Highest grade completed 10.59 10.16 10.76 0.81 0.04 0.00
0.00 0.39 0.97
African American 0.23 0.33 0.19 -5.16 -0.54 -0.65
0.00 0.15 0.12
Other race 0.06 0.08 0.06 -4.16 -0.29 0.25
0.05 0.64 0.73
Hispanic ethnic origin 0.11 0.11 0.11 4.11 -0.34 -0.81
0.01 0.47 0.13
Midwest 0.26 0.24 0.27 -2.50 0.11 -0.64
0.13 0.82 0.24
South 0.42 0.39 0.44 -5.20 -0.21 -0.56
0.00 0.63 0.28
West 0.18 0.13 0.20 -0.69 -0.24 -1.31
0.69 0.63 0.02
Suburbs 0.31 0.26 0.33 -0.64 -0.11 0.02
0.59 0.76 0.95
Nonmetro 0.28 0.25 0.30 -4.46 0.30 0.01
0.00 0.39 0.99
Household rents dwelling 0.55 0.77 0.47 -0.07 0.23 0.02
0.95 0.48 0.96
Occupies dwelling without payment 0.04 0.02 0.05 1.52 0.78 -0.04
0.54 0.28 0.96
Number with no HEI 0.43 0.55 0.39 -59.70 -6.54 -5.22
Adjusted R2
0.00 0.00 0.00
0.90 0.81 0.66
*Dependent variable means are per person with 3-day dietary intake data.
**Numbers below estimated regression coefficients are prob values.
10 Family Economics and Nutrition Review
Total Saturated
Fruit Dairy Meat fat fat Cholesterol Sodium Variety
3.60 6.21 7.19 6.31 5.15 8.33 7.86 5.92
3.23 6.47 7.21 6.33 4.67 8.21 7.86 5.56
3.74 6.12 7.18 6.31 5.33 8.38 7.86 6.05
-3.18 -1.48 -1.62 0.12 2.70 -2.92 0.60 -5.00
0.02 0.24 0.09 0.93 0.06 0.02 0.60 0.00
0.01 0.00 0.00 -0.01 -0.01 0.00 -0.01 0.01
0.30 0.76 0.70 0.16 0.19 0.57 0.35 0.28
-0.06 0.32 -0.42 -0.38 -0.95 -0.65 -0.72 -0.23
0.94 0.65 0.43 0.58 0.24 0.37 0.26 0.74
-0.01 0.04 0.05 0.02 0.02 0.02 O.D3 0.02
0.73 0.03 0.00 0.35 0.45 0.23 0.03 0.30
2.79 3.35 2.25 2.33 -0.33 2.49 3.09 2.09
0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.70 0.00 0.00 0.01
4.18 8.01 8.53 7.53 5.18 9.41 8.23 7.57
0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
-0.39 -1.10 0.41 -0.07 0.87 0.49 0.56 -0.02
0.61 0.12 0.45 0.92 0.29 0.50 0.38 0.98
1.63 -0.63 -0.40 1.11 0.96 3.04 3.39 0.84
0.01 0.29 0.38 0.06 0.16 0.00 0.00 0.16
0.19 0.22 0.05 0.04 -0.02 0.18 -0.18 0.30
0.00 0.00 0.34 0.48 0.78 0.00 0.00 0.00
-0.40 -2.70 1.06 -0.28 0.61 -0.96 -0.72 -0.57
0.45 0.00 0.01 0.56 0.28 0.06 0.11 0.26
-0.81 -3.26 -0.23 0.39 1.25 -0.91 0.64 -1.19
0.36 0.00 0.72 0.63 0.19 0.29 0.39 0.16
-0.59 -1.78 2.55 2.18 2.72 -0.08 0.18 0.08
0.38 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.90 0.75 0.90
-0.13 0.41 -0.45 -1.76 -1.79 0.84 0.81 0.12
0.85 0.52 0.35 0.01 0.01 0.20 0.16 0.86
-1.86 -1.43 0.37 -0.93 -0.41 0.23 0.59 -0.98
0.00 0.02 0.42 0.12 0.55 0.71 0.28 0.10
1.10 -0.37 -0.98 -0.74 -0.86 0.05 2.25 0.40
0.13 0.58 0.06 0.26 0.27 0.94 0.00 0.56
1.09 -0.15 -0.32 0.05 -0.84 -0.03 -0.18 -0.18
O.D3 0.75 0.36 0.92 0.12 0.95 0.67 0.71
0.03 -1.27 0.16 -0.15 -0.15 -2.08 -1.26 -0.05
0.96 0.01 0.66 0.75 0.78 0.00 0.00 0.92
-0.30 0.16 0.78 -0.08 -0.68 -0.16 -0.04 0.00
0.52 0.71 0.02 0.85 0.17 0.72 0.91 1.00
0.37 -0.08 0.22 1.01 0.61 -0.60 -1.17 0.44
0.72 0.93 0.77 0.29 0.58 0.54 0.18 0.65
-3.65 -6.65 -7.15 -6.25 -4.46 -7.17 -6.27 -6.35
0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
0.35 0.70 0.83 0.68 0.43 0.74 0.74 0.67
1998 Vol. 11 Nos. 1&2 11
The average low-income household in
the United States had a household-level
HEI of 62.18. Food stamp households
have slightly lower means at 60.70,
whereas nonparticipant households are
slightly higher at 62.74. With regard to
components, the lowest overall compo­nent
score is for fruits (3.60 of 10), and
the best component score is for choles­terol
(8.33). Food stamp households
have lower mean component scores than
do low-income nonfood stamp house­holds
for all components except dairy,
meat, and fat. Food stamp households
have lower mean component scores for
fruit (they eat too few servings) and for
saturated fats (they receive an excessive
percentage of calories from saturated
fats). These correspond to the highest
and lowest values for the general
population ( 12).
Sample means for the independent vari­ables
help characterize the groups. The
means of the dummy (zero-1) variables
reflect the proportion of the population
with a particular characteristic, for ex­ample,
the proportion of female-headed
food stamp households is 71 percent,
compared with 53 percent of all low­income
households and 46 percent of
nonfood stamp households. The mean
income of food stamp households ex­pressed
as percent of the poverty thresh­old
was substantially less than nonfood
stamp low-income households (65.71
percent versus 87.93 percent). The average
household size in TFP MAEs was 2.13,
with food stamp participating house­holds
slightly larger at 2.29 than non­food
stamp households, at 2.07. The
proportion of food stamp households
with at least one member participating
in the WIC program is 19 percent. Food
stamp households receive food stamps
valued at $34.22 per week, on average.
12
Regression results for the 11 equations
are also shown in table 2. Unlike the
means, these regression results are not
weighted, since many of the variables
used to construct survey weights are
included in the equations ( 8). Estimated
regression coefficients are shown for
each independent variable for each of
the 11 diet quality measures. The level
of statistical significance (prob-value)
of each estimated regression coefficient
is shown directly underneath the
coefficient.
Interestingly, regression results indicate
that the estimated effect of household
income on the diet quality of the sample
households was not significant at con­ventional
levels of statistical significance.
Recall that average household income
as a percent of the poverty threshold for
food stamp receiving households was
65 .71, substantially lower than that of
the nonfood stamp households (87.93).
The estimated coefficient on the food
stamp participation variable is inter­preted
as the effect on the level of the
dependent variable (HEI or HEI compo­nent)
that a food stamp participating
household (27 percent of households)
with value of food stamp benefits equal
to zero would have, other things equal.
The estimated coefficient on the food
stamp participation variable is negative
for the HEI and all components but dairy.
However, it is only significant for the
HEI at the 0.03 level of statistical
significance.
By contrast, the value of food stamps re­ceived
has a substantial and statistically
significant effect on overall diet quality,
controlling for other relevant factors.
For each additional dollar of food stamps
received, the aggregate household HEI
score increases by an estimated 0.22
points. At the average weekly food
stamp value of $34.22, the aggregate
household HEI increases 7.5 points, on
average. However, since food stamp
households "start" at an HEI about 3.86
points lower than similarly situated non­food
stamp households, the net effect of
food stamp participation on aggregate
household HEI is about 3.7 points,2 on
average. Not surprisingly, the positive
nutritional effect of food stamp partici­pation
is larger for higher levels of food
stamps, but lower for lesser food stamp
benefit values. A break-even point is
estimated at $17.54 per week. That is to
say, when weekly household food stamp
benefits are at least $17.54, food stamp
participants demonstrate superior diet
quality to similarly situated nonprogram
participants. At a food stamp value of
($3.86/.22) $17.54 per week or lower,
food stamp participants have diet quality
inferior to nonparticipants. Thirty-two
percent of Food Stamp Program partici­pating
households received food stamps
valued at less than $17.54 per week.
With regard to the HEI components,
the value of food stamps received exerts
a positive and statistically significant
effect on vegetables, dairy, meat, and
sodium component scores.
Turning to WIC, results suggest that
participation in the WIC program by
one or more household members has a
very strong positive effect on aggregate
household diet quality measures, con­trolling
for other factors. WIC participa­tion
alone contributes 23.45 points to
the aggregate household HEI score
2The estimated coefficient of 3.86 is significant at
the 0.03 level of statistical significance. However,
given that no adjustments for survey design effects
were made in estimating standard errors of the
coefficients, it could be statistically insignificant.
In fact, when the HEI equation is estimated inde­pendently
from those of its components, the esti­mated
coefficient on the food stamp value remains
at 0.22 points and is significant, but the food stamp
participation dummy variable coefficient is not
significant.
Family Economics and Nutrition Review
(controlling for household size among
other variables). This overall effect is
distributed about evenly in all diet quality
components except for vegetables and
saturated fat, where the estimated co­efficients
are not statistically significant.
The possibility that WIC participation
may improve household scores for some
diet components not included in the
WIC food package, for example, fruits3
and possibly vegetables, is interesting
and may be explained in several ways.
One is that consumption of the WIC
food package (by those for whom it was
intended, and possibly their families)
improves diet quality scores for the types
of foods that it includes, for example,
dairy products and grains, as well as
frees up food stamps and money income
to purchase more of all foods for the
household. Another, more general,
explanation is that households that par­ticipate
in the WIC Program are more
health and nutrition oriented than are
other households, including households
receiving only food stamps. Finally, the
nutrition education received as part of
participation in the WIC Program is
likely to improve diet quality through
better diet-related behaviors.
Only a minority (34 percent) of low­income
households was dual-headed,
with food stamp participating house­holds
less likely to have both male and
female heads (20 percent) than were
nonparticipating low-income house­holds
(39 percent). Seventy-one percent
of food stamp households were headed
by a female head only, compared with
46 percent for nonfood stamp house­holds
and 53 percent for all low-income
households. Compared with female-
3
The exception is fruit juice, which is included in
WIC packages.
1998 Vol. 11 Nos. 1 &2
headed households, dual-headed house­holds
have lower grains scores and
higher vegetable scores, on average.
Female-headed households have much
higher HEI, cholesterol and sodium
scores, and somewhat higher fruit and
total fat scores than comparable male­headed
households.
The mean highest grade of formal
schooling completed by the household
head was 10.59 years. Food stamp and
nonfood stamp households differed little
in average years of education. Regres­sion
results show that years of education
has a positive and statistically signifi­cant
effect on overall diet quality. Every
additional grade completed increases
the household HEI score by 0.81 points.
Years of education has a small positive
effect on fruit, dairy, and cholesterol
scores, and a small negative impact
on the sodium score.
Thirty-three percent of the food stamp­receiving
households were African
American, 8 percent were of other race,
and the remaining 59 percent were
White. The corresponding figures for
nonfood stamp households were 19 per­cent
African American, 6 percent other,
and 75 percent White. African American
households have, on average, a lower
household HEI by 5.16 points than
comparable White households. They
also have lower dairy and higher meat
scores than White households. Race
does not appear to have significant
effects on most of the diet quality
component measures.
Hispanic households, at 11 percent of
households, have substantially higher
HEI scores than non-Hispanic house­holds
(4.11 points). They have higher
total fat and saturated fat scores, but
lower dairy scores than non-Hispanic
households.
Geographic location and urbanization
status have few statistically significant
effects on the HEI and its components.
Households in the Midwest (24 percent
of food stamp and 27 percent of non­food
stamp households) have poorer
total fat and saturated fat scores than
those in the East. Households in the
South (39 percent of food stamp and 44
percent of nonfood stamp households)
have lower fruit and dairy scores than
those in the East. Households in the
Western United States (13 percent of
food stamp and 20 percent of nonfood
stamp households) have lower vegetable
and higher sodium scores than similar
households in the Eastern region of the
United States.
Households in the suburbs (26 percent
of food stamp and 33 percent of non­food
stamp households) have better fruit
scores, while households in nonrnetro
areas (25 percent of food stamp and 30
percent of nonfood stamp households)
have lower HEI, dairy, cholesterol, and
sodium scores than similar households
in the central city. Tenancy status has no
significant effects on HEI or its compo­nents
scores. The only exception is for
households that rent their dwelling (77
percent of food stamp and 47 percent of
nonfood stamp households), which have
a better meat score, compared with those
households that own their dwelling.
As expected, the control variable for the
number of household members with no
computable HEI score has an extremely
strong and statistically significant nega­tive
association with the total HEI score
and its components. This control variable
is also responsible for the relatively high
R-squared values.
13
Limitations
Severallintitations are relevant when
interpreting the results. First, our study
is exploratory; however, household pro­duction
theory and past analyses of the
demand for foods or nutrients guided
model specification and the selection
of variables (8). Thus, the possibility
of comntitting gross errors is reduced.
Several problems remain, however. A
major limitation is that the Restricted
Ordinary Least Squares reduced form
specification is used as opposed to a
system of simultaneous equations
reflecting the usual derived demands
for inputs in the household production
function, the household production
function itself, and the final demand
for health and healthy eating.
The range of the dependent variables is
constructed between zero and 100 for
the HEI and zero and 10 for its compo­nents,
which may imply the usual estima­tion
problems with linear probability
models (9). Because an HEI is not com­puted
for children below the age of 2
years and for infants, they are necessarily
excluded from the household aggregates
of the dependent variables. This could
distort results, to some extent. We did
not explicitly account for the survey's
clustered design effects on statistical
hypothesis testing. Thus, estimated "prob"
values between 0.05 and around 0.01
could result in either acceptance or
rejection of the null hypothesis, if
tested to account for design effects.
As several variables of potential impor­tance
in influencing "healthy eating"
are not available (for example, taste of
particular foods, the present value of
future health outcomes, etc.) and, as
there may be self-selection relative to
14
the FSP or WIC participation, the results
may well suffer from specification biases. 4
Despite these limitations, this study
provides valuable new insights into the
relationship between food assistance
program participation and diet quality.
Summary and Conclusions
In this study, we estimated a statistical
model using the USDA Healthy Eating
Index and its 10 components at the
household level as dependent variables
to better understand the effects of food
assistance program (FSP and WIC) par­ticipation
and food stamp benefit levels
on the diet quality of low-income house­holds
(controlling for intervening factors).
Independent variables included relevant
socioeconomic variables available in
the CSFII. As is typical of such studies,
selection of independent variables was
heavily influenced by their availability.
The interpretation of their estimated
coefficients can vary substantially
depending on the theoretical model the
researcher believes is most appropriate
for the task at hand. Here, we were
broadly guided by well-known house­hold
production theory and past research
in selection of variables. A novel contri­bution
to the literature is that the HEI
and its components aggregated to the
household level were the dependent
variables. Thus, effects of FSP and
WIC participation on a household level
measure of the overall diet and, at the
same time, its components, could be
estimated.
"Typically, in situations such as this, a statistical
correction for self-selection bias is performed.
However, the procedure requires identification
of variables that are highly correlated with the
decision to participate in the program but not
with diet quality. In practice, such variables are
not readily available (see reference 4).
Results tend to be in general agreement
with previous studies of diets that were
based on components of the total diet,
mostly nutrient intakes. These results
reaffirm the effectiveness of two of the
main food assistance programs, the FSP
and the WIC in meeting nutritional
needs of low-income households, needs
that may continue after welfare reform.
On average, the estimated effect of Food
Stamp Program participation on the
overall diet of participating households
is positive. The effect increases with
increased value of food stamps received,
as intended.
In terms of its effect on HEI components,
the Food Stamp Program had statisti­cally
significant and positive effects on
the consumption of vegetables, dairy,
and meat products, as well as on sodium
component scores. Assuming that able­bodied
adults without dependents or
immigrants have sintilar HEI and com­ponent
consumption responses to food
stamp income, removal from the Food
Stamp Program would result in a reduc­tion
in these scores, unless food stamp
income is replaced by earned or other
income.
Participation in the WIC Program by
household members improved house­hold
level HEI scores dramatically. In
addition, WIC participation resulted in
improved scores for all HEI components
except for saturated fat. Positive effects
reflect the value and increased availability
of in-kind foods found in the WIC food
package coupled with beneficial effects
of the nutrition education component of
the WIC Program.
Family Economics and Nutrition Review
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(Ed.), Strategies for Improving Undernutrition (Chapter 6). Spring Press, Hartford.
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Family Economics and Nutrition Review
1998 Vol. 11 Nos. 1&2·
Household Food Security
in the United States in 1995:
Results From the Food
Security Measurement
Project
Margaret Andrews
Gary Bickel
Steven Carlson
Office of Analysis and Evaluation
Food and Nutrition Service
U.S. Department of Agriculture
The need for a reliable measure of U.S. hunger and food insecurity has been
recognized since the early 1980's. This paper describes the development of
such a measure and presents initial findings from data collected for USDA
by the Census Bureau. A unidimensional scale of severity, based on survey
responses, was used to identify food security status; household weights
were then applied to estimate the prevalence of food insecurity and hunger
in three designated severity ranges. The large majority of American house­holds
(88 percent) were food secure in the year ending April 1995. Hunger
was evident in 4.1 percent of all households. The paper concludes with a
discussion of future nutrition monitoring and research directions for food
security measurement.
espite the recent economic
recovery that has lowered
unemployment and poverty
rates in the United States,
many American families still struggle to
meet basic needs. This was the context
for Vice President Gore's announcement
in September 1997 at the National Summit
on Food Recovery and Gleaning of new
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
estimates of the extent of food insecurity
and hunger in U.S. households. Based
on a state-of-the-art measurement
method developed through a broad
collaborative effort, the new estimates
indicate that nearly 12 million house­holds
experienced food insecurity in the
12 months prior to April1995, while
one or more persons i~ about 4 million
of these food-insecure households
experienced hunger due to resource
constraints during the period. Although
efforts to estimate the level of hunger
in the United States have been made
previously (7,10,28,31,33), the new
USDA estimates are the first based
17
upon specially designed data collected
from a large, nationally representative
sample and subsequently validated to
show strong statistical properties of
internal validity and reliability. The
new estimates thus represent the first
reliable, standard national measure
of food insecurity and hunger for the
United States.
The availability of a standard national
measure of hunger and food insecurity
provides a powerful tool for monitoring
changes in the food situation of U.S.
households. It may be particularly
useful in tracking the effectiveness
of the Federal Government's efforts
through food assistance and food
recovery programs to help ensure that
all Americans are able to obtain ade­quate
food. In a time of tight Federal
budgets and with welfare reform shift­ing
increased responsibility for social
welfare to the States, this monitoring
function is especially important. This
paper provides a brief introduction to
the genesis of the new measure, including
its conceptual basis and methodology,
presents brief summary findings from
the baseline estimates for 1995, and
discusses implications of the measure
for future research on family nutritional
and general well-being.
Background
Federal interest in developing a hunger
measure can be traced from at least
1984 when the President's Task Force
on Food Assistance recognized the dis­tinction
between the concept of hunger
in the traditional medical usage and a
more socially oriented, common-sense
meaning. The report noted: "To many
people hunger means not just symptoms
that can be diagnosed by a physician, it
18
bespeaks the existence of a social, not a
medical, problem: a situation in which
someone cannot obtain an adequate
amount of food, even if the shortage is
not prolonged enough to cause health
problems" (23 ). The Task Force also
noted the absence of any reliable measure
of hunger in this latter commonly
understood meaning and the resulting
inability of policymakers to verify or
negate claims of increasing hunger.
This lack of an accepted standard
measure of hunger prevalence was
cited by the Task Force as posing a
continuing policy conundrum.
After the 1984 Task Force report, State
and local researchers increased efforts to
develop soundly based survey measures
(22). The Food Research and Action
Center sponsored and obtained major
funding for the Community Childhood
Hunger Identification Project (CCHIP)
( 12,30-32) and researchers at the Cornell
University Division of Nutritional
Sciences sought to develop independent
hunger scales (8,25,26).
At the Federal level, USDA began the
process, in the mid 1980's, of analyzing
the significance of the single survey
question on the adequacy of household
food supplies that had been added to
its regular national food consumption
surveys beginning in 1977 but had not
been analyzed in depth ( 4,11 ). A similar
household food sufficiency question and
several others adapted from the CCHIP
instrument were included in the Third
National Health and Nutrition Examina­tion
Survey sponsored by the National
Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)
( 1,6). Finally, the Federal Government's
commitment to develop a standardized
measure of food insecurity or food
insufficiency for the United States
took definitive shape in 1990-92 when
USDA's Food and Nutrition Service
(FNS)1 and NCHS were assigned joint
responsibility to carry out this task
under the Ten-Year Comprehensive
Plan for the National Nutrition
Monitoring and Related Research
Program (NNMRRP) Act of 1990.
FNS took lead responsibility for devel­oping
the measures; it established an
Interagency Working Group for Food
Security Measurement to maintain a
collaborative process for the project.
As a key part of its conceptual basis,
the project adopted the authoritative
definitions of food insecurity and
hunger developed by a special expert
panel convened by the American Institute
of Nutrition (AIN) and reported by the
Life Sciences Research Office of the
Federation of American Societies for
Experimental Biology ( 3 ). According
to these definitions, food insecurity
occurs when a household does not have
access to enough food, at all times, for
an active, healthy life. Hunger, defined
as "the painful or uneasy sensation that
results from not having enough food" is
a potential but not necessary consequence
of food insecurity. 2
1 FNS was renamed Food and Consumer Service
(FCS) in 1994 in the context of broader USDA
agency reorganizations. The original name was
restored in December 1997.
2For a description of the conceptual basis of the
Government's measure, including its debt to the
body of prior research and an extensive bibliography
of the literature to that point, see reference 5. For
further discussion of this conceptual basis and its
operationalized form and testing in the Govern­ment's
new measure, see references 14, 15, and
24. For recent validation studies and related work
within the same general approach, see references
2, 13, 16-18, and 21.
Family Economics and Nutrition Review
Methods
The subsequent operational development
of the hunger and food security measure
was also a broad-based, cooperative
venture. At an early stage, FNS enlisted
the expertise of the Census Bureau for
developing and administering a national
food security questionnaire. In January
1994, FNS and NCHS jointly sponsored
a Conference on Food Security Measure­ment
and Research, bringing together
a wide range of experts in the field.
Participants discussed their previous
experiences with measuring hunger
and food insecurity and then organized
into working groups to provide continuing
advice and critique to FNS in develop­ing
a baseline draft questionnaire (29 ).
In the next stage, the Census Bureau
worked closely with FNS and its
collaborators to analyze, field test, and
refine the food security questionnaire.
The draft version from the research
conference was revised after review by
an expert panel convened by the Census
Bureau's Center for Survey Methods
Research. The questionnaire was field
tested and analyzed in the autumn of
1994 (27) and, with some further revi­sion,
was administered for the first time
as a Supplement to the Current Popula­tion
Survey (CPS) in April1995. With
minor revisions, the food security sup­plement
was administered with the CPS
again in September 1996 and April 1997.
The data collection in April 1995 pro­duced
some 45,000 usable interviews.
In September 1995, FNS contracted
with Abt Associates, Inc. (Abt) to
analyze these data in a cooperative
venture with FNS staff and other
researchers involved in developing
the questionnaire. From the beginning,
1998 Vol. 11 Nos. 1&2
FNS expected the analysis to produce
a scaled measure of food insecurity and
hunger that would allow the government
to identify households experiencing
problems providing adequate food for
all members.3The Abt team was selected
because it had developed an innovative
analysis design that applied state-of-the­art
scaling methods that were used most
widely in the educational testing industry.
(See reference 15 for technical details of
the scale estimation.)
The initial Abt procedure used standard
factor analysis techniques to perform a
systematic set of exploratory analyses of
the 1995 survey results. The preliminary
work found that, with one important
area of exception, most of the food
security indicators in the questionnaire
fit a single-dimensional measurement
scale. A few items failed to meet the
rigorous fit criteria for inclusion and
were dropped from the scale. However,
one general type of indicator also did
not fit the single-dimensional measure
of severity of food insecurity: those
items dealing with the coping strategies
that a food-insecure or at-risk household
might engage in to improve its food
supply from emergency sources (e.g.,
getting food from a food bank or bor­rowing
money for food). This is under­standable
given that all households do
not face the same set of choices for
coping with an inadequate food supply.
3The choice of household-level as opposed to
family-level unit of analysis was due in part to the
sampling frame of the Current Population Survey;
it also reflects the objective of developing a com­prehensive
measure encompassing the entire U.S.
residential population. In the March 1995 CPS
sample, 70 percent of households were family
households including two or more persons residing
together and related by birth, marriage, or adoption;
20 percent were single-person households; and 5
percent consisted of two or more unrelated persons
residing together.
... food insecurity
occurs when a
household does
not have access to
enough food, at all
times, for an active,
healthy life. Hunger,
defined as "the painful
or uneasy sensation
that results from not
having enough food"
is a potential but not
necessary consequence
of food insecurity.
19
Once it was established that a core set of
food security and hunger items could be
scaled along a single dimension, subse­quent
analyses used the Rasch model,
conceptually the most basic form within
the general class of item-response-theory
(IRT) statistical scaling models. Initially
the Rasch model was applied to a subset
of the sample including only households
with children. The resulting scale was
subjected to further analyses that showed
it to be robust for other household types
as well. Various reliability indicators
were calculated and found to be within
accepted ranges.4 Item response stability
measures for individual items on the
scale and for the overall scale were
judged to be acceptable by the Census
Bureau using data from some 1,100
quality control re-interviews that were
performed in the week following the
regular Apri11995 CPS interviews (20).5
4 A general discussion of potential sources of error
in the food security measure is presented in the
Summary Report volume ( 14). More extensive
tteatment is provided in the Technical Report ( 15).
Based on three traditional measures of reliability
(Speannan-Brown's and Rulon's split-half reliability
estimates and Cronbach's alpha), the estimated
reliability values ranged from .86 to .93 for the 12-
month measurement scale. Since the distribution
of household scale scores is highly skewed (56.5
percent of sample households passing the income
and food security screener had zero score), a fur­ther
dichotomized split-halftest was conducted,
collapsing the split-half scales into the dichoto­mous
variable "answered all questions negatively"
and "answered one or more questions affirma­tively."
On this test, the level of agreement
between paired subscales was 84.8 percent for
households with children and 85.8 percent for
households without children, while the corre­sponding
kappa statistic (showing the extent of
agreement beyond mere chance) was .70 and
.69 for the respective household types.
20
Table 1. Sequenced items and food security status categories for food
security measurement scale
Sequenced questions in scale
Q53 Worried food would run out
Q55 Unable to afford balanced meals
Q58 Child fed few low-cost foods
Q24 Adult cut size or skipped meals
Q56 Couldn't feed child balanced meals
eat less than felt
Food security status
Food secure
Food insecure
Adult cut size or skipped meals, 3+ months
Child not eating enough Food insecure
with
moderate hunger
Adult hungry but didn't eat
The 18 items included in the scale are
shown in abbreviated form in table 1
with their original question numbering.
The scale items are ordered according
to increasing levels of severity. The
least severe items (Q53 and Q54) ask
whether the household respondent has
5Jn this analysis of response variance, 17 percent
of the continuous variables and 9 percent of the
categorical questions with enough cases to be
analyzed exhibited "low" variance, 75 percent
and 68 percent respectively showed "moderate"
variance, and 8 percent and 24 percent showed
"high" variance. Thus, 76 to 92 percent of the
two question types exhibited "low to moderate"
response variance while the food insecurity scale
overall showed "moderate" response variance.
The authors noted, "(t]his distribution is typical
of response variance results for households
surveys" (20 ).
worried about or experienced a situation
within the past 12 months where food
was running out, and there was no money
to buy more. Subsequent items indicating
experiences or perceptions of inadequate
food intake in terms of both quality and
quantity (Q32, Q55, Q56, Q57, Q58)
fall in the low to intermediate ranges of
severity measured by the scale. Items
dealing with reduced food intakes and
hunger for adults (Q24, Q25, Q35, Q38)
fall in the intermediate range of severity
measured, and those indicating reduced
food intakes and hunger for children in
the household (Q40, Q43, Q44, Q47,
Q50) or more severe hunger for adults
(Q28, Q29) fall at the severe end of the
scale. All items refer to the 12-month
Family Economics and Nutrition RevieW
period preceding April1995, and all ask
respondents to report only experiences,
perceptions, or behaviors that result
from a lack of financial resources. Thus,
instances of hunger or meals skipped
due to dieting, illness, or busy schedules
are excluded by design. Each household
in the sample received a scale score
between zero and 10 under the Rasch
measurement model, based on its par­ticular
pattern of responses to all 18
items. These detailed household scores
indicate the distinct levels of severity
of food insecurity experienced by U.S.
households across the full range of
severity captured by the measure.
The scaled measure provides much
greater detail about the nature and extent
of this poverty-linked phenomenon than
ever before available. However, the very
detail of the nearly continuous severity
measure makes it inappropriate to serve,
in itself, as a useful measure of the
prevalence of food insecurity and hunger.
For this purpose, several well-defined,
broad subranges of severity level need
to be designated and a simpler, categorical
measure created based on these specified
severity ranges.
To provide this second type of measure,
FNS worked with Abt and other collabo­rators
to develop a categorical measure
that would classify the food security
status of households in terms of several
broad subranges of the measured severity
levels indicated by their scale scores
( 15 ). The four designated status categories
are illustrated in table 1. Households with
complete responses to all 18 items were
classified as food secure if the respon­dent
answered affirmatively to fewer
than 3 of the 18 questions on the
1998 Vol. JJ Nos. 1 &2
scale,6 while those with 3 or more posi­tive
responses were assigned to one of
the food-insecure groups. Those with 3
to 7 positive answers were classified as
food insecure without evident hunger,
those with 8 to 12 as food insecure with
moderate hunger, and those with 13 or
more as food insecure with severe hunger.
Locating the initial threshold (scale cut­point)
of each designated severity-range
category was done by identifying the
second or third item in sequence indica­tive
of the salient conditions characteriz­ing
the category.7
It should be noted that the main role
of the categorical measure is to provide
an established, consistent basis for com­parison
of food insecurity and hunger
prevalence over time and across popula­tion
subgroups. In this sense, the exact
placement of the category boundaries
(scale-score cutpoints, in operational
terms) is a matter primarily of identifying
severity-range categories that have rele­vance
to ongoing program objectives
and policy discussion. In a deeper sense,
locating the category boundaries or
thresholds is a matter of identifying the
6.Two groups of households were classified as
food secure on the basis of zero scale scores:
higher income households (~185 percent poverty)
that were screened from the food security portion
of the interview on the basis of consistent negative
responses to three broad food security screening
questions, and both high- and low-income house­holds
that passed the screener but then gave no
affirmliive response to any food security scale item.
7.ln contrast to the underlying scale estimation,
which is fully detennined by the measurement
model and the data, locating the designated cate­gory
thresholds involved judgment as to how
many indications of a given severity subrange
should be present and across how broad a range
of measured severity they should be observed.
... food insecurity
is more prevalent
among Black and
Hispanic households
(almost twice the
levels for Whites),
households with
children, households
under the poverty
level, and households
in central city metro­politan
areas.
21
important distinctions (conceptual and
in reality) between the several subranges
of severity level encompassed within the
full range of food insecurity observed for
contemporary U.S. households.8
The sequenced pattern of items on the
scale reflects the underlying commonality
among otherwise diverse households of
the conditions and experience of food
insufficiency in relation to basic need
and the available set of potential house­hold
responses to such conditions­what
Radimer termed "hunger as a
managed process." In measurement
terms, this predominant sequential
response pattern means that the typical
household answering positively to any
given scale item will also have answered
affirmatively to all less severe items.
For the entire CPS sample, 76 percent
of households exhibited this common
ordering of responses and were termed
the "modal group" of households. While
not all the April 1995 respondents fol­lowed
this common ordering pattern
perfectly, most of the non-modal house­holds
did not diverge very far from the
common pattern. 9
8The names applied to the designated severity
level subranges, or food insecurity status categories,
are nominal only and intended to reflect U.S.
social reality as articulated; for example, in the
1984 President's Task Force Report on Food
Assistance. Clearly, the names chosen for rele­vance
to the U.S. context are not intended to
suggest, and do not reflect, the much deeper
severity ranges of food insecurity and hunger that
are relevant to underdeveloped countries subject
to famine conditions. In principle, the form of
measurement scale developed from contemporary
U.S. data could be extended, with a similar data
set collected in poorer countries, to encompass the
deeper levels of food insecurity and hunger severity
experienced in those circumstances within the
same unidimensional measurement construct.
For a similar food-security scale developed for
urban subsistence dwellers in Kampala, Uganda,
see reference 19.
22
Figure 1. Item response patterns for food security status groups
053 055
054 058
024 032 057 038 028 029 044
056 025 035 040 047 043 050
Fl* - Food Insecure
The response patterns for the four food
security status groups are illustrated in
figure 1 where the questions in the scale
are ordered sequentially and the propor­tion
of affirmative responses to each
item within each status group is pro­jected
onto the vertical axis. Overall,
the response pattern shows the expected
contrast among the food security status
groups.
90f those households with at least one positive
response to a scale item, the proportion following
the modal pattern was only 32 percent for house­holds
with children and 48 percent for households
without children. Nonetheless, the fit statistics
produced in estimating the Rasch model indicate
an acceptable degree of conformance of their
responses to the modal pattern. Detailed analysis
of the non-modal response patterns is one of the
areas of research now opened up and expected to
be fruitful in helping identify constellations of
conditions and behaviors occurring in highly
stressed household settings.
Findings
By classifying survey responses accord­ing
to food security status and applying
household weights provided by the
Census Bureau, Abt used the supple­ment
data to estimate the prevalence of
food insecurity and hunger within the
specified severity range categories in the
United States for the 12 months preceding
the April 1995 survey. As can be seen in
figure 2, the large majority of American
households (88 percent) were found to
be food secure in the year ending April
1995.
About 11 .9 million (of approximately
100 million) households experienced
food insecurity as a consequence of
limited resources during that period.
Family Economics and Nutrition Review
Figure 2. Distribution of U.S. Households, by food security
status level, 1995
Table 2 shows that household food
insecurity is more prevalent among
Black andHispanic households (almost
twice the levels for Whites), households
with children, households under the
poverty level, and households in central
city metropolitan areas.
D Food secure
II Food insecure - No hunger evident
• Food insecure - Moderate hunger
• Food insecure - Severe hunger
The number of households where
hunger due to inadequate resources
88.1 o/o was experienced during the period can
Most of the food-insecure households
were food insecure without hunger
(7.78 million households), meaning that
they reported experiencing concerns
about the adequacy of their food supply,
substituted cheaper food items, and
reduced the quality and variety of their
diets, but without significantly reducing
food intakes. There were 3.34 million
households classified as food insecure
with moderate hunger, where some
reduction in food intake due to inade­quate
household resources was evident
for one or more household members,
Primarily adults.
1998 Vol. 11 Nos. 1&2
be estimated by combining the number
of households assigned to the two most
severe levels of food insecurity. This
yields an overall estimate of 4.16 million
households where one or more members
0.8o/o experienced some level of hunger in the
12-month period preceding the April1995
3.3% survey.
An additional 817,000 households were
identified as food insecure with severe
hunger. In these households, reductions
in food intake were observed for both
children and adults, and one or more of
the adults was likely to have experienced
an extensive reduction in food intake
(i.e., going whole days without food)
du e to m. ad e quate resources. 10
10-For the modal household group, children's
hunger indicators appear only within the severe
hunger range of household level food insecurity
measured by the scale. Among the non-modal
households, however, children's hunger may
appear within other food insecure categories as
well. Analysis of the CPS data is continuing to
identify the extent of such cases.
The number of individuals affected by
hunger is not easily extrapolated from
these estimates. Because the data were
collected in a household survey, home­less
individuals are not included. Further­more,
for many households (i.e., those
with more than one adult or with more
than one child), the structure of the
questionnaire does not allow accurate
determination of the food security status
of each adult or each child in the house­hold.
An upper bound for the number of
individuals affected by hunger is given
by the total population of persons living
in those households that were classified
into either of the two hunger categories.
From the Apri11995 survey, this number
is 11.2 million individuals, most of them
adults.
For most of the food insecure households
with children (and for all such households
fitting the modal response pattern), the
children are not likely to be seriously
affected unless the household has reached
the overall severity level required to
classify it as experiencing food insecurity
23
Table 2. Prevalence of household food security status, by selected characteristics, 1995
Food insecure- Food insecure- Food insecure-
Characteristics Food secure without hunger moderate hunger severe hunger
Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent
All households 88,266 88.1 7,783.4 7.8 3,343.3 3.3 816.8 0.8
Household composition
Household with children under age 18 31,434 82.5 4,676.2 12.3 1,670.6 4.4 331.9 0.9
Household with elderly but no children 26,155 94.1 1,124.1 4.0 436.2 1.6 89.9 0.3
Household with no children or elderly 30,677 89.5 1,983.1 5.8 1,236.4 3.6 394.9 1.2
Race/ethnicity
White 76,129 90.0 5,653.7 6.7 2,298.1 2.7 534.0 0.6
Black 9,104 75.8 1,779.4 14.8 895.4 7.5 233.8 1.9
Other 3,032 84.6 350.6 9.8 150.1 4.2 49.4 1.4
Hispanic1 5,725 74.3 1,360.2 17.7 501.0 6.5 115.6 1.5
I ncome-to-poverty rati.O 2
Under 0.50 3,240 58.4 1,365.0 24.6 688.4 12.1 270.9 4.9
Under 1.00 10,230 64.7 3,500.7 22.1 1,587.6 10.0 489.5 3.1
Under 1.30 14,841 68.1 4,367.9 20.0 2,032.7 9.3 567.7 2.6
Under 1.85 25,914 73.8 5,952.6 17.0 2,568.0 7.3 680.4 1.9
Over 1.85 62,352 95.8 1,830.8 2.8 775.3 1.2 136.3 0.2
Area of residence
Central city metropolitan area 20,172 83.9 2,494.4 10.4 1,102.5 4.6 286.5 1.2
Other metropolitan area 33,115 90.5 2,244.3 6.1 976.4 2.7 265.8 0.7
Nonrnetropolitan area 20,007 88.0 1,906.2 8.0 802.8 3.4 161.2 0.7
Census geographic region
Northeast 17,443 89.7 1,335.6 6.9 524.6 2.7 142.6 0.7
Midwest 21,113 89.4 1,614.6 6.8 743.9 3.2 150.9 0.6
South 31,311 87.5 2,959.2 8.3 1,244.6 3.5 285.5 0.8
West 18,399 86.2 1,874.0 8.8 830.3 3.9 237.7 1.1
1 Persons of Hispanic ethnicity can be of any race.
2Income and poverty status refer to household income in a recent 12-month period, varying among rotation groups in the CPS sample.
24 Family Economics and Nutrition RevieW
with severe hunger. Thus, a preliminary
estimate for the number of children who
experienced hunger during the period
is given by the number of children living
in households classified into the severe
hunger category .11 This preliminary
approximation indicates that 692,000
children were living in households
where severe hunger was experienced
in the 12 months prior to the April 1995
survey. (Further information on house­hold
and individual estimates can be
found in reference 14.)
Discussion
The development of the food security
and hunger measures as described here
provides the baseline from which the
Government can improve its capacity
to monitor the food adequacy of U.S.
households. As such, the true impor­tance
of the estimates can only be
known in the future, when consistent
comparisons can be made over time
against the baseline numbers.
To the extent possible, the new measures
are being implemented at the national
level by all Federal agencies cooperat­ing
in the National Nutrition Monitoring
and Related Research Program. USDA
plans to continue annual collection of the
basic household data needed to replicate
the baseline hunger and food security
measures through regular supplements
to the Current Population Survey. The
core set of survey questions needed to
liThe estimate is approximate and preliminary
for two reasons. First, as noted, the number of
children living in households classified to the
severe hunger category provides only an upper
bound to the number of children experiencing
hunger within that category of households.
Second, an undetennined number of children
living in some of the (non-modal) households
classified to the moderate hunger category also
experience hunger, but are excluded from the
Preliminary approximation.
1998 Vol. 11 Nos. 1 &2
estimate the scaled measures are planned
for inclusion in the Fourth National
Health and Nutrition Examination Survey
(NHANES-IV) and the next round of
USDA's Continuing Survey of Food
Intakes by Individuals (CSFII), sched­uled
to be merged with NHANES-IV
beginning in the year 2000. The Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention,
Division of Nutrition (CDC), NCHS,
and FNS are working together to test
subscales of the 18-item scale that can
be used to measure food insecurity and
hunger in State surveillance systems
such as NCHS's State and Local Area
Integrated Telephone Survey and CDC's
Pediatric Nutrition Surveillance System.
Food security modules are also planned
for the Census Bureau's Survey of
Program Dynamics to be fielded for
5 consecutive years beginning in 1998
and the Early Childhood Longitudinal
Study being conducted by the U.S.
Department of Education, National
Center for Educational Statistics. The
University of Michigan Panel Survey
of Income Dynamics included the food
security module in a special supplement
on women and children in 1997, and
this module is being considered for
implementation. FNS has collected food
security and household food-use data in
a national sample of low-income house­holds.
As these data emerge, researchers
will begin to expand beyond the basic
monitoring function to explore the cau­sation
and consequences of household
food insecurity and hunger across the
various levels of severity at which they
are experienced and measured.
Aside from their incorporation in
various research settings and the
Government's use in nutrition monitor­ing,
the new measures will provide a
baseline for assessing food assistance
program performance under the require­ments
of the Government Performance
and Results Act. Specifically, USDA
has proposed using the number of
households experiencing poverty-linked
hunger as a performance measure for
assessing the extent to which the agency
is succeeding in its goal to enhance food
and nutrition security for low-income
Americans.
Finally, ongoing food security and
hunger measures will provide a direct
measure of unmet need, which may
prove useful for researchers interested
in exploring alternative measures of
material deprivation. While the Census
Bureau's annual estimate of the number
of households living below the poverty
line has been the standard measure of the
extent of material deprivation, the pov­erty
measure has been criticized as in­creasingly
inadequate for this task (9).
Future explorations of the relationship
of food security and hunger measures to
other social and economic indicators of
basic needs and resources may be fruit­ful
in this area.
Acknowledgments
Andrews and Bickel were members of
the Office of Analysis and Evaluation's
food-security measurement team under
the direction of Carlson at the time this
work was performed. Other members
included Sharron Cristofar and Bruce
Klein. Andrews is currently employed
by the Economic Research Service,
USDA.
25
26
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(Eds.), Nutrition and Food Security in the Food Stamp Program. U.S. Department
of Agriculture, Food and Consumer Service, Alexandria, VA.
6. Briefel, R.R. and Woteki, C. E. 1992. Development of food sufficiency questions
for the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Journal of Nutrition
Education 24 (Suppl.):24S-28S.
7. Brown, J.L. 1987. Hunger in the United States. Scientific American 256:36-41.
8. Campbell, C.C. 1991. Food insecurity: A nutritional outcome or a predictor
variable? Journal of Nutrition 121:408-415.
9. Citro, C.F. and Michael, R. (Eds.). 1995. Measuring Poverty: A New Approach.
Summary and Recommendations. National Academy Press, Washington, DC.
10. Cook, J.T. and Brown, J.L. 1992. Estimating the number of hungry Americans.
Working paper, Tufts University Center on Hunger, Poverty, and Nutrition Policy.
Tufts School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Medford, MA.
11. Cristofar, S. and Basiotis, P.P. 1992. Dietary intakes and selected characteristics
of women 19-50 years and their children ages 1-5 years by reported perception of
food sufficiency. Journal of Nutrition Education 24:53-58.
Family Economics and Nutrition RevieW
12. Food Research and Action Center (FRAC). 1983. How to Document Hunger in
Your Community. Washington, DC.
13. Frongillo, Jr., E.A., Rauschenbach, B.S., Olson, C.M., Kendall, A., and
Colmenares, A. G. 1997. Questionnaire-based measures are valid for the identification of
rural households with hunger and food insecurity. Journal of Nutrition 127:699-705.
14. Hamilton, W.L., Cook, J.T., Thompson, W.W., Buron, L.F., Frongillo, Jr., E.A.,
Olson, C.M., and Wehler, C.A. 1997, September. Household Food Security in the
United States in 1995: Summary Report of the Food Security Measurement Project.
Report prepared for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Consumer Service.
15. Hamilton, W.L., Cook, J.T., Thompson, W.W., Buron, L.F., Frongillo, Jr., E.A.,
Olson, C.M., and Wehler, C.A. 1997, September. Household Food Security in the
United States in 1995: Technical Report. Report prepared for the U.S. Department
of Agriculture, Food and Consumer Service.
16. Kendall, A., Olson, C.M., and Frongillo, Jr., E.A. 1995. Validation of the Radimer/
Cornell measures of hunger and food insecurity. Journal of Nutrition 125:2793-2801.
17. Kendall, A., Olson, C.M., and Frongillo, Jr., E.A. 1996. Relationship of hunger
and food insecurity to food availability and consumption. Journal of the American
Dietetic Association 96:1019-1024.
18. Kleinman, R.E., Murphy, J.M., Little, M., Pagano, M., Wehler, C.A., Regal, K.,
and Jellinek, M.S. 1998. Hunger in children in the United States: Potential behavioral
and emotional correlates. Pediatrics 101:E3-E9.
19. Maxwell, D.G. 1995, December. Measuring Food Insecurity: The Frequency
and Severity of "Coping Strategies." FCND Discussion Paper No. 8. International
Food Policy Research Institute, Food Consumption and Nutrition Division, Washington,
DC.
20. McGuiness, R. 1997, January. Response Variance in the 1995 Food Security
Supplement. Quality Assurance and Evaluation Branch, Demographic Statistical
Methods Division, Bureau of the Census.
21. Murphy, J.M., Wehler, C.A., Pagano, M.E., Little, M., Kleinman, R.E., and
Jellinek, M.S. 1998. The relationship between hunger and psychosocial functioning
in low-income American children. Journal of the American Academy of Child and
Adolescent Psychiatry 37: 163-170.
22. Nestle, M. and Guttmacher, S. 1992. Hunger in the United States: Rationale,
methods and policy implications of state hunger surveys. Journal of Nutrition
Education 24 (Suppl.): 18S-22S.
1998 Vol. 1J Nos. 1&2 27
28
23. President's Task Force on Food Assistance. 1984. Report of the President's Task
Force on Food Assistance. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.
24. Price, C., Hamilton, W.C., and Cook, J.T. 1997, September. Household Food
Security in the United States in 1995: Guide to Implementing the Core Food Security
Module. Report prepared for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Consumer
Service.
25. Radimer, K.L., Olson, C.M., and Campbell, C. C. 1990. Development of indicators
to assess hunger. The Journal of Nutrition 120 (Suppl.):1544-1548.
26. Radimer, K.L., Olson, C.M., Green, J.C., Campbell, C.C., and Habicht, J.P.
1992. Understanding hunger and developing indicators to assess it in women and
children. Journal of Nutrition Education 24 (Suppl.):36S-44S.
27. Singer, E. and Hess, J. 1994, October. Evaluation of the Pretest Results for the
Food Security Supplement to April1995 CPS. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Center
for Survey Methods Research.
28. Tufts University, Center on Hunger, Poverty and Nutrition Policy. 1993. Policy
Report: Thirty Million Hungry Americans. Testimony prepared for the House Select
Committee on Hunger, Washington, DC. Tufts School of Nutrition Science and
Policy, Medford, MA.
29. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Consumer Service, Office of Analysis
and Evaluation. 1995. Food Security Measurement and Research Conference:
Papers and Proceedings. Alexandria, VA.
30. Wehler, C.A. 1989. Identification of Childhood Hunger: The FRAC Model.
Paper presented at the AIN Conference on Nutrition Monitoring and Nutrition
Status Assessment, December 8-10, Charleston, SC.
31. Wehler, C.A., Scott, R.I., Anderson, J.J., and Parker, L. 1991. Community
Childhood Hunger Identification Project: A Survey of Childhood Hunger in the
United States. Food Research and Action Center, Washington, DC.
32. Wehler, C.A., Scott, R.I., and Anderson, J.J. 1992. The Community Childhood
Hunger Identification Project: A model of domestic hunger-Demonstration project
in Seattle, Washington. Journal of Nutrition Education 24 (Suppl.):29S-35S.
33. Wehler, C.A., Scott, R.I. , Anderson, J.J., and Parker, L. 1995. Community
Childhood Hunger Identification Project: A Survey of Childhood Hunger in the
United States. Food Research and Action Center, Washington, DC.
Family Economics and Nutrition RevieW
1998 Vol. 11 Nos. 1 &2
Do Child Support Awards
Cover the Cost of Raising
Children?
Mark Lino
Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion
A large proportion of the poor in the United States is composed of single
mothers and their children. Many of these women receive partial child support
payment or none at all. Welfare reform legislation has, therefore, focused
on child support payment enforcement. However, the economic well-being
of single-parent families can be improved only if child support payments are
paid on a regular basis and reflect the cost of raising children. Comparing
USDA estimates of expenditures on children with average full child support
payments, which represent average child support awards, shows that these
full payments cover a small proportion of the total cost of raising children.
Therefore, to improve the economic well-being of single-mother families,
child support enforcement plus child support awards that reflect the cost
of raising children are needed.
dra.-natic change in American
family life during the past
30 years has been the growth
in the number of single-parent
families. In 1970, 13 percent of all families
with children were headed by a single
parent. By 1996, this proportion had
climbed to 32 percent ( 14,17). It is esti­mated
that half of the children in the
United States will spend part of their
childhood in families headed by a single
parent (4)-typically, the mother. Since
1970, single parenthood has become
synonymous with poverty. In 1994, the
median income of single-parent families
headed by a female was less than one­third
that of married-couple families
with children ( 17); 53 percent of these
female-headed families had income
below the poverty threshold ( 17).
Child support-legally mandated
payments from a noncustodial parent
to a custodial parent 1--can improve the
economic well-being of single-parent
families if these payments are paid on
a regular basis and reflect the cost of
raising children. Given that the recent
Welfare Reform Act limits the time single
parents are eligible for public assistance,
child support is an important way to
improve the economic well-being of
single-parent families.
1The custodial parent has primary physical care
of a child. It does not necessarily mean the parent
has sole legal or sole physical custody. The non­custodial
parent does not have primary physical
care of a child; although, a child can reside with
this parent some portion of the time.
29
Much of the focus on child support has
been on payment enforcement because
noncustodial parents often do not make
payments. In 1991, of custodial mothers
who were due child support, 48 percent
received partial payment or none at all
(15 ). The adequacy of child support
awards has received much less attention.
Beller and Graham compared 1985 child
support awards with the cost of raising
children (based on 1972-73 data inflated
to 1985 dollars) and found these awards
only covered a fraction of the cost of
raising children (2). A U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services study
reviewed a variety of estimates of the
cost of raising children and compared
them with 1990 State child support
guidelines ( 18). Most State guidelines
were within the range of cost estimates;
however, these guidelines were at or
near the lower bound of these estimates.
Pirog-Good compared 1991 State child
support awards determined by the
guidelines in each State with estimates
of the cost of raising children and con­cluded
most State guidelines fell short
of this cost (9). The Women's Legal
Defense Fund compared 1989-90 State
child support guidelines with a standard­of-
living measure for children (5). It
was found that, in most States, support
awards based on the guidelines left
children with less than a decent standard
of living.
Since 1960, the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) has provided annual
estimates of family expenditures on
children (often referred to as the cost of
raising a child) by family income level.
This study examines the adequacy of
child support awards by comparing
average full child support payments with
30
USDA's estimates of the cost of raising
children. Average full child support
payments should reflect total child
support awards. This study differs from
previous research-it focuses on USDA's
estimates of the cost of raising children
as a basis for comparison; whereas,
other studies use a range of estimates,
some of which are outdated. Also, it
uses actual child support payments to
make this comparison.
The article begins with a brief overview
of child support guidelines in the United
States, a description of the USDA child­rearing
expense estimates, and a compari­son
of the USDA estimates with other
estimates of expenditures on children.
The article concludes with a discussion
of the policy implications for child
support guidelines.
Overview of the U.S. Child
Support Guideline System
Before 1984, the use of child support
guidelines was limited in many States
(21 ). Child support awards, typically set
on a case-by-case basis, varied tremen­dously
among judges (5). This system
often resulted in awards that had little
rationale (2). The emphasis during this
time was on the enforcement of child
support payments since a large percentage
of single mothers received no payments­a
problem that still exists. In 1978, about
half of custodial mothers due child support
received partial payment or none at all
(2). By 1991, this proportion remained
almost unchanged at 48 percent ( 15 ).
Title N-D of the 1975 Social Security
Act made the Federal Government an
overseer of child support collection;
although, the daily work of collecting
child support remained a State
responsibility.
The Child Support Enforcement
Amendments of 1984 were primarily
aimed to improve the collection of child
support. These amendments required
States to (1) use automatic wage with­holding
to collect overdue child support,
(2) use expedited legal processes to
establish and enforce support orders, (3)
collect overdue support by intercepting
State income tax refunds, and (4) initiate a
process for imposing liens against real
and personal property for nonpayment
of child support. The amendments also
required States to set numeric child
support guidelines and to make these
guidelines available to officials in charge
of setting the level of child support. The
amendments, however, did not require
that these guidelines be binding.
The Family Support Act of 1988 required
States to implement presumptive rather
than advisory child support guidelines.
It stipulates that these guidelines are
to be followed unless their application
would be unjust or inappropriate. In
addition, States are required to review
their guidelines every 4 years to ensure
that their application results in appropri­ate
child support award amounts and to
consider economic data on the cost of
raising children in this review. This
act, for the first time, requires States to
establish child support guidelines and to
use them as the basis of child support
awards.
Family Economics and Nutrition RevieW
The welfare reform bill (Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act of 1996) also con­tained
major child support enforcement
provisions as receipt of child support
and dependency on public assistance are
typically inversely related. Overall, child
support legislation has primarily dealt
with better enforcement of such support.
This emphasis is not swprising given the
large percentage of custodial parents
who receive no child support. However,
the enforcement of child support will
significantly improve the economic situa­tion
of single-parent families only if the
awards reflect child-rearing expenses or
the cost of raising children.
USDA Estimates of
Expenditures on Children
by Families
Methodology
Since 1960, USDA has provided annual
estimates of expenditures on children
from birth through age 17 by married­couple
and single-parent families. 2 These
expenditures on children are estimated
for the major budgetary components:
Housing, food, transportation, clothing,
health care, child care/education, and
miscellaneous goods and services
(personal care items, entertainment, etc.).
The latest child-rearing expense estimates
are based on the 1990-92 Consumer
Expenditure Survey (CE) updated to
1996 dollars using the Consumer Price
Index (CPI). The CE is the only Federal
2
The administrative report has a detailed descrip­tion
of the USDA methodology used to estimate
child-rearing expenses and a discussion of the
expenses (6).
1998 Vol. 11 Nos. 1 &2
Milestones in Federal Legislation Regarding Child Support
Guidelines
1975: Title IV-D of the Social Security Act:
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (then named the U.S.
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare) is given primary responsibility
for" ... establishing standards for State (child support) program organization,
staffing, and operation to assure an effective program." However, primary
responsibility for operating the child support enforcement program " ... is
placed on the States pursuant to the State plan."
1984: Child Support Enforcement Amendments:
States were required to " ... formulate guidelines for determining appropriate
child support obligation amounts and distribute the guidelines to judges and
other individuals who possess authority to establish obligation amounts." The
amendments, however, did not require judges and other officials to follow these
child support guidelines.
1988: Family Support Act of 1988:
Judges and other officials are required to" ... use State guidelines for child support
unless they are rebutted by a written finding that applying the guidelines would
be unjust or inappropriate in a particular case." States are also required to
" ... review guidelines for awards every four years" and to consider economic data
on the cost of raising children in this review.
1996: Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act:
This act strengthened child support enforcement provisions given the link between
receipt of child support and welfare dependency.
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Administration for Children and Families,
Office of Child Support Enforcement. 1994. Child Support Enforcement Nineteenth Allllual Report to
Congress.
survey of household expenditures
collected nationwide. It collects infor­mation
on sociodemographic character­istics,
income, and expenditures of a
nationally representative sample of
households.
The methodology employed by USDA
to estimate child-rearing expenses spe­cifically
examines the intrahousehold
distribution of expenditures using data
for each budgetary component. The CE
contains child-specific expenditure data
for some budgetary components (clothing
and child care/education) and household
level data for other budgetary components.
31
32
Multivariate analysis is used to estimate
household and child-specific expenditures.
Income level, family size, and age of the
younger child are controlled for so esti­mates
can be made for families with
these varying characteristics (regional
estimates are also derived by controlling
for region).
Estimated household and child-specific
expenditures are allocated among family
members (e.g., in a married-couple,
two-child family: the husband, wife,
older child, and younger child). Since
the estimated expenditures for clothing
and child care/education only apply to
children, these expenses are allocated
by dividing them equally among the
children.
Because the CE does not collect expendi­tures
on food and health care by family
member, data from other Federal studies
are used to apportion these budgetary
components to a child by age. The
USDA food plans are used to allocate
food expenses among family members.
These plans, derived from a national
food consumption survey, show the
share of food expenses attributable to
individual family members by age and
household income level. These members'
food budget shares are applied to esti­mated
household food expenditures to
determine food expenses on a child.
Health care expenses are allocated to
each family member based on data from
the National Medical Expenditure Survey.
This survey contains data on the propor­tion
of health care expenses attributable
to individual family members. These
members' budget shares for health care
are applied to estimated household
health care expenditures to determine
expenses on a child.
Unlike food and health care, no authori­tative
base exists for allocating estimated
household expenditures on housing,
transportation, and other miscellaneous
goods and services among family members.
Two common approaches used to allo­cate
these expenses are the per capita
and the marginal cost methods. The
marginal cost method measures expendi­tures
on children as the difference in
expenses between couples with children
and equivalent childless couples. This
method depends on development of an
equivalency measure; however, there is
no standard measure. Various measures
have been proposed, each yielding
different estimates of expenditures on
children. Also, the marginal cost approach
assumes-without much basis-that the
difference in total expenditures between
couples with and without children can
be attributed solely to the children in a
family. In addition, couples without
children often buy homes larger than
they need in anticipation of children.
Underestimates of expenditures on
children can result when these couples
are compared with similar couples with
children.
For these reasons, USDA uses the per
capita method to allocate housing, trans­portation,
and miscellaneous goods and
services among household members.
This method allocates expenses among
household members in equal proportions.
Although the per capita method has
limitations, they are considered Jess
severe than those of the marginal cost
approach. In implementing the per capita
method, it should be noted that for
homeowners, housing expenses do not
include mortgage principal payments; in
the CE, such payments are considered to
be part of savings. Also, because work­related
transportation expenses are not
directly child specific, these costs are
excluded when estimating children's
transportation expenses.
Family Economics and Nutrition Review
Estimated Child-Rearing
Expenditures
Estimates of 1996 family expenditures
on the younger child in husband-wife
households with two children for the
overall United States are shown in
table 1. Expenses on children vary
considerably by household income level.
Depending on the age of the child, the
annual expenses range from $5,670 to
$6,740 for families in the lowest income
group (1996 before-tax income less
than $34,700), from $7,860 to $8,960
for families in the middle-income group
(1996 before-tax income between $34,700
and $58,300), and from $11,680 to
$12,930 for families in the highest
income group ( 1996 before-tax income
more than $58,300).3 On average, house­holds
in the lowest income group spend
28 percent of their before-tax income
per year on a child, those in the middle­income
group, 18 percent, and those in
the highest income group, 14 percent.
Housing accounts for the largest share
of total child-rearing expenses. Based
on the average for the six age groups,
housing accounts for 33 to 37 percent
of child-rearing expenses, depending on
income. Food is the second largest average
expense on a child for families regard­less
of income level, accounting for 15
to 20 percent of child-rearing expenses.
Transportation is the third largest child­rearing
expense, making up 14 to 15
percent of child-rearing expenses across
income levels. Expenditures on a child
are lower in the younger age categories
and higher in the older age categories.
3
The estimates are based on all households, in­cluding
those with and without specific expenses.
So, for some families their expenditures may be
htgher or lower than the mean estimates, depend­tng
on whether they incur the expense or not. This
Particularly applies to child care/education for
which about 50 percent of families in the study
had no expenditure.
1998 Vol. 11 Nos. 1 &2
This held across income groups. Expenses
for the various budgetary components
varied by each age group. Food expenses
were highest for teenagers, whereas child
care expenses were one of the largest
expenses for preschoolers.
Additional analysis found that, on
average, the expenses depicted in table 1
also reflect those on the older child in a
given age category in a two-child family.
However, compared with expenditures
for each child in a two-child family,
husband-wife households with one child
spend an average of 24 percent more on
the single child, and those with three or
more children spend an average of 23
percent less on each child. This is due
to family income being spread over fewer
or more children and diseconomies or
economies of scale. For example, a
middle-income family with one child
age 6-8 spends $10,080 on the child, a
middle-income family with two children
ages 6-8 and 15-17 spends $17,090 on
the children, and a middle-income family
with three children ages 6-8, 12-14, and
15-17 spends $19,960 on the children.
For child-rearing expense estimates by
region and for single-parent households,
see Lino (6).
USDA Child-Rearing Expense
Estimates Compared With
Other Estimators
Among other estimators used to deter­mine
child-rearing expenses, the Engel
and Rothbarth estimators are two of
the most commonly used. Both of these
estimators are marginal cost approaches­expenses
on children are gauged as the
difference between expenses of couples
with children and equivalent childless
couples. This difference is thought to
represent additional or marginal expendi­tures
that couples make on a child. The
two estimators use different equivalency
scales, however, to compare the ex­penditures
of couples with and without
children.
The Engel estimator (based on the work
of Engel in the 19th century, see DHHS
( 18) for a description of Engel's work)
assumes that if two families spend an
equal percentage of their total expendi­tures
on food, they are equally well-off.
The Rothbarth estimator (based on the
work of Roth barth in the 1940's, see
Roth barth ( 10 )) uses the level of excess
income available to people after neces­sary
expenditures on family members
are made as the equivalency measure.
Roth barth's definition of excess income
includes luxuries (alcohol, tobacco,
entertainment, and sweets) and savings.
Both estimators have limitations, as
previously explained. Each assumes a
"true" equivalency measure. However,
in the economics literature, neither of
the equivalency measures has been
validated as the "true" measure. Also,
the marginal cost estimators do not
provide direct estimates of how much
is spent on a child. They estimate how
much money families with children
must be compensated to bring the parents
to the same utility level (as gauged by
an equivalence scale) of couples without
children-this is a different question
from "how much do parents spend on
children?"
According to Bamow, an economist who
studied the issue of estimating expendi­tures
on children, " ... while they [the
Engel and Rothbarth estimators] un­doubtedly
yield biased estimates of
the true level of expenditures made on
behalf of children, the direction of the
bias is believed to be known" ( 1 ).
He makes the argument that " ... the
Rothbarth estimator is likely to provide
33
Table 1. Estimated annual expenditures* on a child by husband-wife families, overall United States, 1996
Child care
Transpor- Health and Miscel-
Age of child Total Housing Food tation Clothing care education laneoust
Before-tax income: Less than $34,700 (A verage=$21,600)
0-2 $5,670 $2,160 $810 $720 $370 $390 $660 $560
3-5 5,780 2,140 900 700 360 370 740 570
6-8 5,900 2,060 1,160 810 400 420 440 610
9-11 5,940 1,860 1,380 880 450 460 270 640
12-14 6,740 2,080 1,450 1,000 750 470 190 800
15-17 6,650 1,680 1,570 1,340 670 500 310 580
Total $110,040 $35,940 $21 ,810 $16,350 $9,000 $7,830 $7,830 $11 ,280
Before-tax income: $34,700 to $58,300 (Average=$46,100)
0-2 $7,860 $2,930 $960 $1 ,080 $440 $510 $1,080 $860
3-5 8,060 2,900 1,110 1,050 430 490 1,200 880
6-8 8,130 2,830 1,420 1,170 470 560 770 910
9-11 8,100 2,630 1,670 1,240 520 600 500 940
12-14 8,830 2,840 1,680 1,350 880 610 370 1,100
15-17 8,960 2,440 1,870 1,710 780 640 630 890
Total $149,820 $49,710 $26,130 $22,800 $10,560 $10,230 $13,650 $16,740
Before-tax income: More than $58,300 (Average=$87,300)
0-2 $11,680 $4,650 $1 ,280 $1,510 $580 $580 $1,630 $1,450
3-5 11 ,910 4,620 1,450 1,480 560 560 1,780 1,460
6-8 11 ,870 4,550 1,740 1,600 620 640 1,220 1,500
9-11 11 ,790 4,350 2,030 1,670 670 690 850 1,530
12-14 12,620 4,570 2,130 1,780 1,110 690 650 1,690
15-17 12,930 4,160 2,240 2,160 1,010 730 1,150 1,480
Total $218,400 $80,700 $32,610 $30,600 $13,650 $11,670 $21,840 $27,330
• Estimates are based on 1990-92 Consumer Expenditure Survey data updated to 1996 dollars using the Consumer Price Index. The figures represent
estimated expenses on the younger child in a two-child family . Estimates are about the same for the older child, so to calculate expenses for two
children, figures should be summed for the appropriate age categories. To estimate expenses for an only child, multiply the total expense for the
appropriate age category by 1.24. To estimate expenses for each child in a family with three or more children, multiply the total expense for each
appropriate age category by 0.77. For expenses on all children in a fam ily, these totals should be summed.
t Miscellaneous expenses include personal care items, entertainment, and reading materials.
34 Family Economics and Nutrition Review
a lower bound estimate of actual expendi­tures
on children, while the Engel esti­mator
is likely to provide an upper
bound." The precise magnitude of the
overestimate of the Engel estimator
or the underestimate of the Roth barth
estimator is unknown. Barnow states
the Engel estimator yields results too
high to be believed so recommends the
Rothbarth estimator be slightly increased
to determine child-rearing expenditures
(1 ).
How do child-rearing expense estimates
derived from the Engel and Rothbarth
estimators compare with the USDA
estimates? Table 2 shows this comparison
by number of children and total house­hold
expenditures. The results for the
Engel and Rothbarth estimators are
from a U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services study (18) that estimated
child-rearing expenses by married couples
based on the 1980-87 CE; this study
contains the most recent child-rearing
expense estimates using the Engel and
Rothbarth approaches.
The USDA estimates are based on the
1995 study. The comparison is based
on child-rearing expense estimates as a
percentage of total family expenditures;
hence, the estimates did not have to be
converted into real dollars. For the
USDA estimates, average expenditures
of families in each income group (as
derived from the CE data) were used
to make the percentages comparable to
those from the DHHS study.
The Engel and Rothbarth methods yield
varying child-rearing expense estimates
that differ as much as 20 percentage
points for a family with three children.
So when using the marginal cost method
in estimating expenditures on children,
the choice of an equivalency measure
1998 Vol. 11 Nos. 1&2
Table 2. Average percent of household expenditures attributable to
children in husband-wife families
Number of children
One
Two
Three
Household expenditure level3
Low
Average
High
Engel1
33
49
59
49
49
49
Estimator
Rothbarth1
Percent
25
35
39
36
36
35
USDA2
26
42
48
45
42
39
1 Percentages for these estimators are taken from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
1~0. ,
2Percentages are from the 1995 USDA study. Average expenditures of families in each income level
were used to make comparisons. Percentages by number of children are based on average expenditures
of middle-income families.
3Percentages by household expenditure level are for a family with two children.
is obviously critical since different
measures yield different results. If the
Rothbarth technique is a lower bound
estimator of child-rearing expenses and
the Engel technique is an upper bound
estimator as Barnow believes, this gives
credence to the USDA estimates of child­rearing
expenses-they are between
those produced by the Engel and Roth­barth
techniques. For families with
one child and for families with a high
expenditure level, the USDA estimates
are closer to the Rothbarth estimates,
whereas for families with a low ex­penditure
level, the USDA estimates
are closer to the Engel estimates. For
families with two or more children and
for families with an average household
expenditure level, the USDA estimates
are about in the middle of the Roth barth
and Engel estimates.
It is sometimes argued that the USDA
method overestimates child-rearing
expenses since the per capita method is
used to allocate housing, transportation,
and miscellaneous expenses among house­hold
members. These three budgetary
components account for about 60 percent
of the child-rearing costs calculated by
USDA. One study argues that child­related
housing expenses should be
measured as the difference in rent
between one- and two-bedroom apart­ments
(3). This argument assumes all
children will reside in rental property.
Housing expenses on an only child in a
lower income and middle-income family
for the overall United States are estimated
by USDA to be about $205 and $285
per month, respectively, in 1996. This
includes the cost of shelter, utilities,
35
furnishings, home insurance, and appli­ances.
According to the Census Bureau,
the difference in median rental price
between an efficiency/one-bedroom
housing unit and a two-bedroom housing
unit in the overall United States was
about $100 per month in 1996 dollars
(16). This does not include utility costs
for many units, furnishings, insurance,
or appliances. Also, the USDA child­rearing
housing expense includes home
owners' and renters' expenses; housing
costs for homeowners are typically
higher than the costs for renters because
owned housing usually has more space
than does rental housing.
The USDA child-rearing expenses do
not include work-related transportation
expenses. These expenses were calcu­lated
to be 40 percent of total transporta­tion
expenses. Miscellaneous expenses
include expenditures on personal care
(e.g., toothpaste and haircuts), entertain­ment
(e.g., video cassettes and toys),
and reading material (e.g., newspapers
and books). Many of the miscellaneous
goods and services are child-oriented
so a per capita approach is reasonable
in allocating these expenses. Based on
some of the goods and services that are
included in this category, it could be
argued that children use more than a
per capita share of these expenses.
Therefore, it is unlikely that the USDA
child-rearing estimates grossly over­estimate
expenditures on children for
housing, transportation, and miscellaneous
goods and services.
36
Table 3. Average full child support payments, household expenditures on
children, and percentage of child-rearing expenditures covered by full
payments, by income group and number of children, 1991
Household expenditures on children 1
Number of Full child Low Middle High
children support payments income income income
$2,776 $6,022 $8,395 $11,789
(46%) (33%) (24%)
2 $4,220 $10,103 $14,085 $19,779
(42%) (30%) (21%)
3 $4,277 $11,878 $16,560 $23,255
(36%) (26%) (18%)
4 or more $4,901 $15,877 $22,135 $31,083
(31%) (22%) (16%)
1Child-rearing expenses are for husband-wife households.
Note: Numbers in parentheses are the percentage of child-rearing expenditures ·covered by full child support
payments.
Sources: Scoon-Rogers, L. and Lester, G.H., 1995, Child Support for Custodial Mothers and Fathers:
1991, Current Population Reports, Consumer Income, Series P60-187, U.S. Department of Commerce,
Bureau ~fthe Census ( 11) and U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Family
Economzcs Research Group, 1992, Expenditures on a Child by Families, 1991 (13).
USDA Child-Rearing Expense
Estimates Compared With
Child Support A wards
How do the USDA child-rearing expense
estimates compare with average child
support awards? Are these awards
adequate in terms of the cost of raising
children? The U.S. Bureau of the Census
periodically publishes a child support
report. The most recent report contains
information on mean child support income
in 1991 for custodial parents receiving
full payment from noncustodial parents
by number of children ( 11 ). Full child
support payments should reflect the
total child support award. The Census
estimates are for all families of which
middle-income families are likely the
norm. Table 3 compares 1991 full child
support payments from noncustodial
parents with the 1991 USDA child­rearing
expense estimates for low-,
middle-, and high-income households
by number of children ( 13 ).
If each parent equally shares child-rearing
expenses, average full payment of child
support should cover half the cost of
raising children. Full child support pay­ments
should not reflect total expendi­tures
on children as this expense is
divided between the custodial and non­custodial
parent. As seen in table 3,
these payments cover less than 50 per­cent
of the cost of raising children
regardless of income group.
Family Economics and Nutrition RevieW
Table 4. Average full child support payments, household expenditures on
children (excluding health care and child care/education expenses), and
percentage of child-rearing expenditures covered by full payments, by
income group and number of children, 1991
Household expenditures on children1
Number of Full child Low Middle High
children support payments income income income
$2,776 $5,177 $7,176 $9,967
(54%) (39%) (28%)
2 $4,220 $8,685 $12,039 $16,721
(49%) (35%) (25%)
3 $4,277 $10,211 $14,155 $19,660
(42%)