Consistent with USDA's efforts to increase state flexibility within the bounds of the law, FNS is expanding allowable activities for states seeking to use non-merit system personnel in call centers. With FNS approval, states may now use non-merit personnel to provide basic case-specific information that is readily available in the system to a SNAP applicant or participant, such as application or case status, benefit issuance date, and status of submitted verifications.
This study examines how the policies that determine benefit levels for the USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program compare to current low-income spending patterns by analyzing the expenditures of low-income households across the United States in 2013 and 2014.
This memo discusses SNAP applications and other documents being sent by clients to the USDA Office of Civil Rights instead of the appropriate state SNAP office. The memo outlines best practices states can use to make submission instructions clearer for clients.
Trafficking of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program 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 2012 through 2014.
The Agricultural Act of 2014 clarifies requirements for participation in evaluations and research in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The purpose of this memorandum is to provide guidance on the implementation of this provision.
FNS is issuing this policy memo in response to inquiries about how state agencies are required to inform households about required and missing verification and how this interacts with other Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) requirements, including whether a state may close a case on the 30th day following application.
In order to ensure efficient and effective program delivery, this memorandum clarifies existing statutory, regulatory and policy guidance regarding the documentation required for a QC case file, second party reviews, state quality control requests for policy interpretations, and requirements for federal access to state systems.
FNS is issuing this memorandum in an effort to clarify the characteristics of BBCE programs and the actions states must take to ensure compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements.
Since the Sept. 10, 2015 (80 FR 54410) publication of the final rule, Clarification of Eligibility of Fleeing Felons, FNS received several questions regarding its implementation. FNS released a Q&A in response to those questions on March 8, 2016. Since that time, FNS has received additional questions and therefore, issued this second Q&A to address them.
This study uses calendar year 2011 point-of-sale transaction data from a leading grocery retailer to examine the food choices of SNAP and non-SNAP households . On average, each month's transaction data contained over 1 billion records of food items bought by 26.5 million households in 127 million unique transactions.