This study was the first in a series of studies that estimated the extent of retailer-level SNAP benefit trafficking. The major findings included large stores having only half the store violation rate that smaller stores had. Additionally, the overall benefit trafficking rate was 13.0% as compared to 1.3% in the latest trafficking rate study.
This report describes how the Direction Card system works; the process undertaken by ODJFS and its EBT vendor to design, develop, and test the system; the implementation process and experiences; and the cost of system design, development, and implementation. Volume 2 of this report compares the ongoing administrative costs of system operations and system levels of benefit loss and diversion with those of on-line EBT systems and the Dayton pilot.
Most discussion of payment accuracy in the Food Stamp Program focuses on the overall level and cost of payment errors. Rarely does the discussion focus on the impact of payment errors on individual households affected. This analysis – based on 2003 food stamp quality control data – leads to two broad conclusions. First, virtually all households receiving food stamps are eligible. Thus, the problem of erroneous payments is not so much one of determining eligibility, but rather one of attempting to finely target benefits to the complicated and changing circumstances of low-income households. Second, most overpayments to eligible households are small relative to household income and official poverty standards. As a result, most food stamp households are poor, and they remain poor even when overpaid.
A summary of past research on program operations and outcomes related to the Food Stamp Program.
To explore other options for assessing impacts, we awarded a contract to provide us with new information on: experiences and satisfaction of participants in FNS programs, and impacts of program participation on reducing hunger, diet quality, and other indicators of household well-being.
Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES 1999-2004) provide a comprehensive picture of the nutrient intakes, diet quality, and food choices of Food Stamp Program participants. Data are presented for FSP participants, income-eligible nonparticipants, and higher income non-participants, broken out by age and gender.
We periodically examine SNAP benefit redemption patterns related to the timing, number, and dollar amount of transactions and the rate at which households spend down and exhaust their monthly benefits. These studies also report on the number of transactions made and the share of benefits redeemed at various types of stores.
We periodically examine how SNAP households use their monthly EBT benefits, including number of purchase transactions per month, average purchase amount, types of retailers frequented, and rate at which households exhaust their benefits over the month. This study, the fourth in the series, was done to assess monthly EBT redemption patterns during FY 2022 when SNAP EBT benefits were much larger than usual due to pandemic funding. By FY 2022, SNAP households could also use SNAP EBT to purchase groceries from authorized online retailers, so we analyzed benefits redeemed through online purchasing.