Do Income Shocks Affect Domestic Violence

This project examines how the timing of nutritional assistance payments a ects instances of domestic violence, using a policy change in Illinois that altered SNAP bene t issuance timing to evaluate two arguments: (i) parents or partners use violence as a way to express frustration near the end of the month when resources are lean, and/or (ii) parents or partners use violence as a way to control the allocation of household resources shortly after an in ux of bene ts. Using crime-level data, we nd that distributing SNAP bene ts later in the month increases domestic abuse by 6.7% and child maltreatment by 32.5%. JEL Classi cation: I38, I18, J18, K42

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