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SNAP Participation
About This Indicator
What Is SNAP?
People receiving benefits each month from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, called food stamps until 2008, counted by the Department of Agriculture since 1968.
Why Does It Matter?
It is the largest food aid program and one of the fastest to respond to hard times: enrollment grows in a recession without a new law. Brief spikes, such as after the 2005 and 2017 hurricanes, are disaster aid for storm-hit households.
Can Politics Influence It?
Directly: Congress sets who qualifies in the farm bill, a bargain pairing food aid with farm subsidies; administrations write rules and grant work-requirement waivers; and states run the program and can make signing up easier or harder.
Key Idea
More participants can mean more need or easier access, so the line is charted and not scored. It kept rising for more than three years after the recession ended in June 2009, as unemployment stayed high and states widened who could qualify.
Not Scored
Source: Department of Agriculture (Food and Nutrition Administration, formerly the Food and Nutrition Service). SNAP Data Tables, national persons by month.
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