Topics on Food Insecurity

We explore two aspects of food insecurity in this study. In both study, we use the Food Security Supplement to the Current Population Survey to measure food insecurity. In our first study, Empirical Analysis of The Black-White Food Insecurity Gap , we explore the factors behind Black households experiencing higher food insecurity relative to a White household. We find that returns to SNAP are experienced primarily by White households. Decomposition analysis suggests that 57.32\% of the Black-White food insecurity gap is explained by observable demographics. And our heterogeneity analysis on the effect of race on food insecurity highlights lack of home ownership, low education and poverty to be crucial factors explaining the gap. Our second study, Food Insecurity And Unemployment, explores the relationship between unemployment and food insecurity. We apply the front-door criterion and argue that the effect of unemployment on food insecurity is completely mediated by resource (monetary) deficiency. We find that householder's unemployment causes the probability of being food insecure by 1.1 percentage points. And if all family members are unemployed the effect is 1.8 percentage points. Further analysis examines food severity and unemployment and finds that unemployment increases food insecurity at the intensive margin, too.