USDA produces four food plans outlining practical, nutritious diets at successively higher cost levels: the Thrifty, Low-Cost, Moderate-Cost, and Liberal Food Plans. The Thrifty Food Plan serves as the basis for maximum allotments in SNAP.
This report offers a description of nutrition education within USDA and a summary of coordinated nutrition education activities completed from October 2021 through September 2022. Activities include nutrition education defined by statute, policies that encourages nutrition education or promotion, and USDA priorities.
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted school meal operations and has contributed to lasting supply chain issues affecting the cost and availability of food and labor. The School Food Authority Survey II on Supply Chain Disruption and Student Participation was administered to all SFAs operating child nutrition programs in schools to gather information on the impacts of continued supply chain disruptions and the return to standard operations during SY 2022–23.
The Nutrition Education and Local Food Access Dashboard is comprised of public data. The goal of the dashboard is to provide a county-level visualization of FNA nutrition support, specifically nutrition education and local food access, alongside other metrics related to hunger and nutritional health.
Review your statewide factsheet for information about SNAP participation, food insecurity, and SNAP's economic impact in your state.
This data collection fulfills states’ reporting requirements and describes trends in program participation during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is part of an ongoing study series examining CN program operations, repurposed to collect waiver reports from all states.
The physical presence waiver, issued under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act of 2020, allowed WIC state and local agencies to remotely certify participants into WIC during the COVID-19 pandemic. This report summarizes data collected from surveys of WIC state and local agencies about the use of the physical presence waiver and the impact it had on WIC services.
Under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act of 2020, the USDA FNA issued certain programmatic waivers to state agencies to support continued access to WIC services and provide flexibilities to some administrative requirements. This brief report summarizes findings about the use and impact of these waivers from surveys of WIC state and local agencies.
This preliminary report summarizes key changes, improvements, and challenges to WC operations as delivered under the physical presence and remote benefit issuance waivers during the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings represent a first, high-level look at survey data collected from state and local WIC agencies to fulfill reporting requirements for waivers issued under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.
This study evaluated emerging mobile communication strategies (MCS) technology, both before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The primary purpose of this study was to better understand the existing landscape of MCS technology, and highlight best practices and lessons learned for from the use of MCS programs by SNAP state agencies.