We leverage the sharp drop in unemployment insurance (UI) benefits following the expiration of the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program to estimate the consumption smoothing effect of UI. The $600/week decline in supplemental UI benefits is estimated to reduce total food spending by 9.7% and the odds of having food sufficiency by 6.0%. The estimate for food spending translates to a marginal propensity to spend on food out of UI benefits of 0.06, or a 1.2% reduction in food spending for every 10 percentage point decline in UI replacement rate (calculated as the ratio of UI benefits to pre-unemployment wages). We find that the consumption effect of UI is countercyclical, greater when economic conditions are weak. The UI effect is also heterogeneous over respondents differentiated by race and ethnicity, income, homeownership, presence of children, state unemployment rates, and state UI generosity. The estimated effect of UI on self-assessed food sufficiency and confidence about future food sufficiency is largely consistent with the food spending results.

中文翻译：

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失业保险金减少和粮食困难

我们利用联邦流行病失业补偿计划到期后失业保险（UI）福利的急剧下降来估计失业保险的消费平滑效应。据估计，每周 600 美元的 UI 补充福利减少将使食品总支出减少 9.7%，粮食充足的可能性降低 6.0%。对食品支出的估计转化为 UI 福利中食品支出的边际倾向为 0.06，即 UI 替代率每下降 10 个百分点，食品支出就会减少 1.2%（计算为 UI 福利与预付失业保险金的比率）。失业工资）。我们发现，失业保险的消费效应是反周期的，当经济状况疲软时，消费效应更大。根据种族和民族、收入、住房拥有情况、有无子女、州失业率和州失业保险慷慨程度的不同，受访者的失业保险效应也存在差异。 UI 对自我评估的粮食充足性和对未来粮食充足性信心的估计影响与粮食支出结果基本一致。