Appendix S NASS Comments and FNS Responses

April 20, 2020

OMB Control Number: 0584-xxxx

Expiration Date: xx/xx/20xx

Appendix S NASS Comments and FNS Responses

Survey of SNAP and Work

Reviewer:

Lindsay Drunasky, Mathematical Statistician

Summary, Estimation, and Disclosure Methodology Branch

National Agricultural Statistics Service

United States Department of Agriculture

General Comments:

This proposal describes well why this research should be conducted and its potential impact on SNAP policies and procedures. Data collection and sampling procedures are well thought out and designed. The survey title is somewhat vague, but the reviewer assumes that survey materials may have already been produced.

Part A.

Good justification of use of different types of incentives to increase response rates and decrease nonresponse bias. However, discussion of this topic could perhaps be a bit shorter.

RESPONSE: We agree that the discussion is lengthy, but believe it is necessary to justify the different types of incentives and to discuss their roles to increase response rates and decrease nonresponse bias. The discussion is modelled after recent successful FNS studies. We made some minor revision to shorten length, but avoided making substantive change in the justification.

Part B.

Discussion of creating the sampling frame is not included in Part B. In part A, contacting the state SNAP agencies is described as a separate data collection phase, but in Part B, the collection of that data is not mentioned.

RESPONSE: Part B is revised to include a description of the separate data collection phase involving State SNAP agencies, noting that sampling is not used. Rather, the universe of the 50 States and the District of Columbia will be contacted. Part B already includes a discussion of the creation of the sampling frame for the survey respondents.

Also, there is no mention of the early response or postpaid incentive in Part B. Please include all proposed incentives in section B.3.1 (Methods to Maximize Response Rates). There is good discussion of nonresponse bias and how to evaluate it.

RESPONSE: Part B is revised to include a description of all incentives, the $2 pre-incentive, the $20 post-incentive, and the $20 early response incentive.