The number of households reporting in Census Bureau data that they had trouble getting enough to eat spiked in the spring of 2020 and rose further in the fall. (Food insecurity is a lack of consistent access to enough food to support an active, healthy life.) Food hardships grew at an alarming rate as the pandemic’s economic effects took hold, disproportionately affecting households with children and people of color.
Households participating in SNAP include families in which one or more adults are working for low pay, seniors with low incomes, people with disabilities living on modest incomes, and people who are out of work more than two-thirds of participants in an average month are in households with children, and more than one-quarter are in households with seniors or people with disabilities.ĭespite the program’s success, millions of people across the United States, including roughly half of all households participating in SNAP, were food insecure even before the pandemic. It’s a much-needed revision, as a large body of evidence shows that SNAP benefits fall short of what households need to afford a healthy diet. The Agriculture Department (USDA) is re-evaluating the basis for SNAP benefits to better reflect the cost of a healthy diet. But SNAP’s relatively modest benefits - which are based on an outdated model and averaged less than $1.40 per person per meal in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic - may not be enough to meet the needs of America’s poor. SNAP forms a critical foundation for low-income households’ health and well-being, lifting millions out of poverty and improving food security. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps) is the primary source of nutrition assistance for many low-income families and individuals, enabling them to spend more on groceries than their limited budgets would otherwise allow and making it easier to put enough food on the table.
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