Information Collection - Assessment of Administrative Costs of eHIP

Summary

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice invites the general public and other public agencies to comment on this proposed information collection. This is a new collection for the study “Assessment of Administrative Costs of Electronic Healthy Incentives Projects (eHIP).” This study will calculate costs incurred by eHIP, which will provide incentives through EBT integration to increase purchase of healthy foods (e.g., fruits and vegetables) by Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants.

Request for Comments

Written comments must be received on or before June 3, 2024.

• Comments may be sent to: Kathleen Patton, Food and Nutrition Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1320 Braddock Place, 5th Floor, Alexandria, VA 22314. 
• Comments may also be submitted via email to Kathleen.Patton@usda.gov.
• Comments will also be accepted through the Federal eRulemaking Portal. Go to http://www.regulations.gov and follow the online instructions for submitting comments electronically.

All responses to this notice will be summarized and included in the request for Office of Management and Budget approval. All comments will be a matter of public record.

Abstract

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), administered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), distributes benefits to eligible low-income households through Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card technology. In fiscal year 2023 FNS awarded grants to three states, Colorado, Louisiana, and Washington for implementing Electronic Healthy Incentives Projects (eHIP) to leverage EBT integration to deliver financial incentives at point of purchase to SNAP households when they purchase qualifying foods (e.g., fruits and vegetables). The aim of this study is to calculate the costs of eHIP in the three states to determine the startup and ongoing costs of administering incentives to SNAP households through EBT integration and to estimate the cost of administering eHIP at scale. The study will quantify startup and ongoing administrative costs to state grantees, retailers, and other eHIP stakeholders. It will also compare administrative costs to the amount of funding distributed as incentives.

Data will be collected from the three project states and multiple entities working with these States, including retailers, EBT processors, third-party processors (TPPs). These data will include both cost data, collected through cost data templates submitted to the states/entities, as well as interviews with state and other project representatives to contextualize the cost data. In addition, existing national data (such as SNAP caseloads and SNAP-authorized retailers) and state data from non-project states (such as state wage rates) will be examined in order to estimate the cost of nationwide expansion of eHIP. Lastly, data from select Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP) grantees—that do not use EBT integration for delivering incentives to SNAP households for purchasing fruits and vegetables will be examined to estimate the costs and return on investment (ROI) of GusNIP and compare these to the eHIP costs and ROI, in order to provide information on how these two incentive delivery modalities differ in costs and economic impact.

Data collection is expected to occur beginning in March 2025 with an approximate end date of May 2026. Data collection activities will be designed to address the three main objectives for the study:

1. Quantify, to the extent possible, the cost of administering eHIP;
2. Estimate the cost of nationwide expansion of eHIP; and
3. Compare the cost of administering eHIP with other incentive programs for SNAP households that do not use EBT integration.

Design consists of building and populating a central cost model for estimating the costs of implementing and administering eHIP. This model will then be expanded, through the use of publicly available state and national data, to estimate the nationwide costs of implementation and administration. Finally, existing data on GusNIP programs will be used to compare costs between eHIP and GusNIP.

Affected Public

State respondents are eHIP project staff. For-profit and not-for-profit business respondents are eHIP-participating EBT vendor staff, TPP staff, and retailer staff.