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 information collection for the contract of the study titled “How Have Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) State Agencies Shifted Operations in the Aftermath of COVID–19? (SNAP COVID study)”. The purpose of the SNAP COVID study is to help FNS develop a comprehensive understanding of how SNAP agencies have adapted their operations and norms during the COVID–19 pandemic and increased their preparedness for another major disruption.
Dates
Written comments must be received on or before June 26, 2023.
- Comments may be sent to Amanda Wyant, 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 Amanda.Wyant@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
As the cornerstone of the nation's nutrition safety net, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides monthly benefits to households with low incomes to reduce food insecurity and improve health and well-being. The COVID–19 pandemic and its economic fallout created extraordinary challenges for SNAP and the broader safety net as whole. To keep processing applications and issuing benefits, SNAP agencies had to pivot sharply to adapt their core operations and deliver services primarily or entirely virtually. The study titled “How Have SNAP State Agencies Shifted Operations in the Aftermath of COVID–19? (SNAP COVID study)” will provide the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) with a comprehensive picture of how state SNAP agencies responded to the pandemic, including their decision-making processes, experiences with program changes in the short and long terms, and how these experiences have prepared states for major disruptions in the future.
The SNAP COVID study will give FNS and state SNAP agencies an important opportunity to assess what did and did not work and why; to describe the decision-making processes that led to states' responses to date and their plans for the period after the public health emergency; to identify changes that are here to stay for the foreseeable future; and to consider the lessons learned to inform continued program improvement and increase preparedness for any future disruptions that affect service delivery.
The study will gather detailed data from all 53 state SNAP agencies via a web-based survey and will conduct case studies in five states. In each of the five site visit states, the study team will conduct interviews with state and local SNAP staff and collect individual-level application and case records and/or aggregate performance data. These data will provide insight on how key metrics such as SNAP caseload size and composition changed after the implementation of program changes. The study team will systematically collect publicly available documents through FNS and web searches to inform the development of data collection instruments for the survey and site visit interviews. The team will use these along with non-public documents (for example, state policy guidance) we will collect from states to confirm and clarify survey responses.