USDA's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides nutrition assistance to eligible low-income individuals and households in need. This report is the latest in a series on states’ SNAP participation rates, which are estimated percentages of people who are eligible for SNAP who participate in the program in each state. This report presents rates for fiscal year (FY) 2022 and revised rates for pre-pandemic FY 2020.
Key Findings
- An estimated 88% of eligible people received SNAP benefits in FY 2022, nationwide. However, participation rates vary widely from state to state.
- In 19 states and the District of Columbia, the SNAP participation rates in FY 2022 were statistically significantly higher than the national rate of 88%, while in 19 states, the rates were significantly lower.
- Some states have been consistently in the top in recent years. In both pre-pandemic FY 2020 and FY 2022, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin had significantly higher participation rates than two-thirds of the states.
- FNS' Midwest Region had the highest participation rate at 98%, which was significantly higher than the rates for other FNS regions in FY 2022.
Pre-pandemic FY 2020 participation rates in this report differ from those published in prior reports mostly due to revised data from the Census Bureau. The COVID-19 public health emergency affected the amount of data available to estimate participation rates. As a result, the FY 2020 participation rates reflect the pre-pandemic period of October 2019 through February 2020, rather than a full year. FY 2021 participation rates were not estimated due to inadequate data for most of that year. FY 2022 participation rates are based on a full year of data.