In 2009, Congress authorized and funded pilot projects to test approaches to facilitate access to SNAP among two underserved populations: the elderly and the working poor. The Michigan and Pennsylvania pilots successfully increased access to SNAP among the elderly. No significant impacts on access were found in the other four states.
SNAP is designed to reduce hunger – reduced food intake or disrupted eating patterns in a household due to lack of money or other resources – but data quantifying this effect is limited. The objectives of this study were to: Assess how food access and food expenditures vary with SNAP participation.
The information in this first year study (school year 2011-12) will provide a baseline for observing the improvements resulting from the implementation of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.
This report is meant to be the first systematic study of the roles different organizations play in designing and implementing SNAP based incentive programs, how they choose markets for their programs, and how they evaluate success of their programs.
This report is the latest in a series on SNAP participation rates, which measure the proportion of people eligible for benefits under federal income and asset rules who actually participate. The report presents participation rates for fiscal year 2011 and revised participation rates for FY 2010 using FY 2011 methodology. The program served 79 percent of all eligible individuals in FY 2011.
This report – part of an annual series – presents estimates of the percentage of eligible persons, by state, who participated in SNAP during an average month in FY 2011 and in the two previous fiscal years. This report also presents estimates of state participation rates for eligible “working poor” individuals (people in eligible households with earnings) over the same period.
This annual report provides details on the demographic characteristics and economic circumstances of SNAP households at both the national and the state level. In 2012, one-person households comprised more than half the caseload (50.3 percent) and the average SNAP household benefit declined by $7 to $274.