FNS Documents & Resources

These SNAP and Food Stamp Program Quality Control annual reports present official quality control error rates and other statistical data derived from SNAP QC reviews conducted for each fiscal year.

The USDA Food and Nutrition Service conducts a variety of studies, evaluations, and related activities that respond to the needs of policymakers and managers and help ensure that nutrition assistance programs achieve their goals effectively. This plan provides short descriptions of projects that are expected to launch in fiscal year (FY) 2025. 

It reflects decisions by FNS program and research staff and leadership on the best use of available research funding to meet current information needs that are aligned with agency priorities to improve program efficiency, integrity, and nutrition. FNS developed this plan in consultation with the agencies of the Research, Education, and Economics (REE) Mission Area. 

To explore other options for assessing impacts, FNS awarded a contract to provide FNS with new information on: experiences and satisfaction of participants in FNS programs, and impacts of program participation on food security, diet quality, and other indicators of household well-being.

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. The participation rate – a ratio of the number of participants to the number of people eligible for benefits – is an important measure of program performance. 

FNS and other researchers have used a variety of approaches to calculate food stamp participation rates. While different approaches can look similar in concept, the results – for particular states or for the nation as a whole – can often look quite different. These differences can be confusing for users who seek to describe the success of the Food Stamp Program without becoming experts in statistics and data analysis. This paper provides an overview and comparison of two sets of estimates produced by FNS as indicators of Food Stamp Program performance.

Using Food Stamp Quality Control data from fiscal year 2000, this analysis suggests that the simplified reporting policies adopted by states in 2004 could have lowered error rates by 1.2 to 1.5 percentage points.

Low participation rates among low-income people eligible for food stamp benefits have prompted a number of outreach and public education efforts. In 2002, the Food and Nutrition Service awarded $5 million in grants to community-based organizations in 15 States to investigate how to increase participation among people eligible for food stamp benefits. The evaluation of these grants describes the features and outcomes of these 18 projects.

A summary of past research on program operations and outcomes related to the Food Stamp Program.

On average, about 23.9 million people living in 10.3 million households received food stamps in the United States each month in FY 2004. 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.