title: Tightening income documentation in a means-tested program: who stays away?
abstract: Programs using means tests to identify low-income households face a trade-off between promoting access and ensuring program integrity. The authors use a comparison-district design to estimate the effects of a pilot program to improve the accuracy of the process of certifying students for free or reduced-price meals in the National School Lunch Program. This pilot program required households to provide income documentation with their applications for these benefits. Requiring income documentation did not reduce the proportion of ineligible households getting free or reduced-price meals. Furthermore, this requirement did reduce access to the program among eligible households.
authors.affiliation: Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., Princeton, New Jersey, USA.
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gleason
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Burghardt
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Strasberg
authors.forename: Lara
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Hulsey
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002664:Child Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003625:Data Collection; D003710:Demography; D004282:Documentation; D004608:Eligibility Determination / Q000191:economics*; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005522:Food Services / Q000191:economics*; D006078:Government Programs / Q000191:economics*; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011203:Poverty; D011632:Public Assistance / Q000191:economics*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013334:Students; D014481:United States