Coverage, Counter-cyclicality and Targeting of Work Requirement Waivers in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

Certain recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program must work 20 hours per week to maintain eligibility. However, historically, states have been able to waive work requirements for areas deemed to have a weak labor market, using at least one of several criteria established through federal regulations. We construct the first dataset containing the monthly waiver status of each United States county from 1997–2023 to explore the coverage, countercyclicality and targeting of waivers resulting from the policy overall, and due to individual criteria specifically. Under the historical waiver criteria, we find that waivers became more prevalent over time and responded positively to county unemployment rates, but were frequently issued to counties with low unemployment rates. We then simulate counterfactual waiver eligibility when eliminating specific waiver criteria, to determine their importance in driving these results.