Errors in Survey Reporting and Imputation and Their Effects on Estimates of Food Stamp Program Participation

Abstract

Accurately measuring government benefit receipt in household surveys is necessary when studying disadvantaged populations and welfare programs. The Food Stamp Program is especially important given its size and recent growth. To validate survey reports, we link administrative data on participation in two states to three key household surveys. We find that between 23 and 50 percent of true food stamp recipient households do not report receipt. A substantial number of true nonrecipients are also recorded as recipients. We examine reasons for these errors, including imputation, an important source of error. Error rates vary with household characteristics, implying complicated biases in multivariate analyses, such as regressions. We directly examine biases in common survey-based estimates of program receipt by comparing them to estimates from our linked data. We find that the survey estimates understate participation among single parents, nonwhites, and low-income households and also lead to errors in multiple program receipt and time and age patterns of receipt.