James Mabli

James Mabli specializes in federal nutrition assistance programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the Food Stamp Program; the Older Americans Act Nutrition Services Program (congregate and home-delivered meal programs); and community-based emergency food programs. Much of his work focuses on the intersection of low-income households’ decisions to participate in these programs, their efforts to find and retain employment, and programs that address barriers to job security and adequate access to food.

Mabli is the project director for Mathematica’s SNAP Employment and Training Pilots Evaluation for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is a large 10-state random assignment evaluation of innovative strategies to help SNAP participants increase employment, earnings, and food security and decrease dependency on public assistance. He also directs the Administration on Aging’s Nutrition Services Program Evaluation, which estimates the impact of receiving congregate and home-delivered meals on participants’ food security, socialization, diet quality, and health. In addition to performing federal evaluations, he directs projects for foundations and nonprofit organizations. He currently leads a project for the Greater Chicago Food Depository, one of the largest food banks in the country. This project assesses the food needs of food-insecure older adults in Chicago and will create a program model for providing meals and services to clients with varying degrees of mobility and food and transportation access, in part through prepared-meal pilots.

Mabli, who joined Mathematica in 2006, publishes frequently in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Labor Economics, Pediatrics, Journal of Nutrition, and the American Journal of Public Health. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from New York University.