The 2014 Farm Bill (Agriculture Act of 2014, H.R. 2642) includes $200 million for up to 10 three-year pilots in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) “to reduce dependency and increase work requirements and work effort.” The Farm Bill also requires an evaluation of these initiatives.

This White Paper considers several issues related to the evaluation of the employment and training pilots: (i) random assignment; (ii) capturing entry effects; (iii) required sample sizes; (iv) data collection; and (v) the interrelation of the pilots and the evaluation.