In this report we discuss our progress in deriving state participation rates for the working poor. We build upon recent studies examining national participation rates for socioeconomic and demographic subgroups and rates for states among the entire eligible population.
On average, about 21.3 million people living in 9.2 million households received food stamps in the United States each month in FY 2003. Food stamp households are a diverse group. Because food stamps are available to most low-income households with few resources, regardless of age, disability status, or family structure, recipients represent a broad cross-section of the nation's poor. This report provides information about the demographic and economic circumstances of food stamp households.
This report presents estimated participation rates for 2002 and revised estimates of rates for 1999, 2000, and 2001.
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.
This report is the latest in a series of publications presenting estimates of the percentage of eligible persons, by state, who participate in the Food Stamp Program. This issue presents food stamp participation rates for states in an average month in fiscal year 2001 and for the two previous fiscal years. These estimates differ slightly from those reported last year because of the change in the reference period from the month of September to the average month across the fiscal year, and improvements in data and methods.
The report is based on a telephone survey of all states with SLEB agreements and case studies of 6 states with noteworthy levels of SLEB agreement-generated activity.
The report assesses the existing commercial infrastructure of on-line Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) in the context of multi-state, multi-program EBT. The findings are based on interviews of respondents involved with the EFT commercial infrastructure.
The Maryland demonstration was the first statewide roll-out of an electronic benefit transfer (EBT) system involving multiple programs on a single card. The goal was to confirm that a large- scale, multi-program EBT system is technically feasible and determine whether such a system can achieve cost-neutrality government-wide while maintaining high quality service for recipients. The test involved food stamps plus five cash-benefit programs: Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), Bonus Child Support for AFDC Recipients, Disability Assistance Loan Program, Non-Public Assistance Child Support, and Public Assistance for Adults. All parts of Maryland, both urban and rural, were converted to EBT.
The objectives of the demonstration were to determine the technological feasibility of offline EBT; whether it would be accepted by stakeholder groups; and whether it would be cost-effective.