‘I don’t know nothing about that’: How “learning costs” undermine COVID-related efforts to make SNAP and WIC more accessible

• Author: Carolyn Barnes,Virginia Riel
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00953997211073948
• Published date: 01 November 2022
• Date: 01 November 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00953997211073948

Administration & Society

2022, Vol. 54(10) 1902 –1930

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/00953997211073948

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Article

‘I don’t know nothing

about that’: How

“learning costs”

undermine COVID-

related efforts to make

SNAP and WIC more

accessible

Carolyn Barnes1 and Virginia Riel2

Abstract

Scholars have focused on administrative burden or the costs of claiming

public benefits. Learning, psychological, and compliance costs can discourage

program participation and benefit redemption. Using 60 in-depth qualitative

interviews with participants of the SNAP and WIC programs, we offer

thick descriptions of how beneficiaries experience compliance, learning,

and redemption costs—a subset of learning costs regarding how to redeem

benefits—amidst COVID-19 policy changes. Although policy changes

were poised to reduce compliance costs and ease conditions that create

redemption costs in each program, the learning costs of policy changes

prevented many program participants from experiencing the benefits of

these policy transformations.

Keywords

poverty, administrative burden, social policy, nutrition assistance

1Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

2North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

Corresponding Author:

Carolyn Barnes, Duke University, 201 Science Dr., Durham, NC 27708-0187, USA.

Email: carolyn.barnes@duke.edu

1073948AAS0010.1177/00953997211073948Administration & SocietyBarnes and Riel

research-article2022

Barnes and Riel 1903

Introduction

The outbreak of COVID-19 has led to acute economic hardship for many

American families. The pandemic has ushered in record job loss, economic

precarity, and food insecurity, all of which have increased demands for public

assistance programs (Moynihan & Herd, 2010). The COVID-19 pandemic

has also highlighted the barriers to accessing safety-net programs. Scholars

and observers have documented how unprecedented demand for unemploy-

ment insurance has strained state systems, leaving many families unable to

access benefits (Aaron, 2020). Likewise, initial reports show that families

have experienced high levels of food insecurity and limited access to nutri-

tion assistance programs (Gassman-Pines et al., 2020).

These kinds of barriers to assistance are not new. Scholars have long

documented the low uptake of means-tested programs and attributed low

uptake to the challenges of applying for and maintaining benefits

(Friedrichsen et al., 2018; Hanratty, 2006; Homonoff & Somerville, 2020;

Sommers et al., 2012). Individuals who are eligible for programs are

unaware of benefits, do not know how to apply, and misunderstand pro-

gram rules (Herd & Moynihan, 2019). Application and recertification pro-

cesses are too complex, requiring an appointment, documents, and lengthy

application forms, or worse, the stigma and stress of accessing benefits

deter applicants (Barnes & Henly, 2018; Heinrich, 2016; Moynihan et al.,

2015; Nisar, 2018). Public policy scholars conceptualize these challenges

as administrative burden or the onerous experience of policy implementa-

tion (Moynihan et al., 2015). Taken together, onerous experiences can

deter eligible individuals from using benefit programs.

Recent scholarship recognizes the need to understand mechanisms of

administrative burden (Peeters, 2020), particularly from the perspective of

clients as they work to gain information about how to access and use benefits

(Masood & Azfar Nisar, 2021). During the COVID-19 pandemic, scholars

continue to question the mechanisms that create administrative burdens,

demonstrating the relationship between compliance and psychological costs

(Baekgaard et al., 2021) and how individuals experience barriers to public

assistance programs (Camillo, 2021). In fact, clients must overcome learning

hurdles by developing awareness of programs and their rules even before

confronting barriers to compliance such as providing documentation (see

Camillo, 2021).

Although the novel Coronavirus outbreak has revealed the weaknesses

of safety-net programs, policy responses to COVID-19 have introduced

policy innovations that can help scholars, policymakers, and practitioners

understand the relationship between learning and compliance costs from