This report is a census of women, infants, and children who were participating in the WIC program in April, 2012. The report includes information on participant income and nutrition risk characteristics, and estimates breastfeeding initiation rates for WIC infants.
Trafficking of SNAP benefits occurs when SNAP recipients sell their benefits for cash to food retailers, often at a discount. Although trafficking does not increase costs to the federal government, it is a diversion of program benefits from their intended purpose of helping low-income families access a nutritious diet. This report, the latest in a series of periodic analyses, provides estimates of the extent of trafficking during the period 2009 through 2011.
The Healthy Incentive Pilot (HIP) is being evaluated using a rigorous research design. The overall goal of the evaluation is to assess the impact of HIP on participants’ intake of fruits and vegetables.
This study describes how farmers markets and direct marketing farmers operate and their perceived benefits and barriers to accepting SNAP.
The in-depth interviews discussed in this report consist of detailed discussions with 90 SNAP households with children in 6 states (California, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Texas) about their financial situations, their use of SNAP, and their overall food security.
In response to rising caseloads and limited resources, states have sought to reduce administrative costs while maintaining or increasing access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The changes states have made are commonly referred to as modernization, not privatization. Modernization decisions are influenced by a variety of factors that vary by state. This report presents in-depth case studies in five states with modernization initiatives in place between July 2000 and February 2012 to describe their experiences, assess potential impacts, and identify key lessons learned.
The purpose of this study was to examine how to define “adequacy” of SNAP allotments objectively in the context of program goals to reduce hunger and improve access to a healthy diet, existing data sources that could inform an assessment of the adequacy of existing and potential alternative SNAP allotments, and new data requirements to strengthen the evidence-base and allow for further rigorous analyses.
The Workshop on Understanding the Relationship Between Food Insecurity and Obesity, held in Washington, DC, from Nov. 16 -18, 2010, was designed to provide an opportunity to explore and illuminate the relationship between food insecurity and obesity, the current state of research, and data and analyses needed to advance understanding of the relationship as a way of countering both hunger and obesity in the United States.
This is the fifth report in a series of periodic analyses to estimate the extent of trafficking in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Trafficking – selling SNAP benefits to food retailers for cash - impedes the mission and compromises the integrity of SNAP. While not a cost to the Federal Government, trafficking diverts benefits from their intended purpose of helping low-income families access a nutritious diet. The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) aggressively acts to control trafficking by using SNAP purchase data to identify suspicious transaction patterns, conducting undercover investigations, and collaborating with other investigative agencies.
In 2001, the Food and Nutrition Service awarded $3.7 million in grants to 14 organizations in 11 states to improve Food Stamp Program access through partnerships and new technology. These projects generally aimed to improve access among the elderly, immigrants, the working poor, and other hard-to-reach groups. The projects used a variety of approaches, including targeted advertising campaigns through community media outlets, informational web sites, computer-assisted pre-screening for eligibility, and direct application assistance.