Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

PRIORITY POLICY

SNAP, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, provides short-term financial support to individuals and families furthest from economic opportunity who struggle to afford food. As the nation’s largest nutrition program, SNAP helps roughly 43 million people access foods and beverages to support a healthy diet. SNAP can increase food security, improve children’s health and academic performance, support economic growth, and lift people out of poverty.

Hunger remains a pressing issue for millions of people living in the United States, furthering racial and ethnic health disparities by overwhelmingly impacting communities of color and those with low incomes. No one should be forced to make impossible choices between buying food, paying the rent, and purchasing medications. There is so much more to do to strengthen and modernize nutrition assistance programs and policies. SNAP can be part of an evidence-based approach to addressing food insecurity across the United States.

Father and son shop for produce at a farmers market

COVID Response

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, there have been several significant changes to SNAP. On the whole, the changes have expanded access to the program and increased benefit levels for participants.

Legislation increased funding to SNAP to cover millions of additional participants and to support a temporary 15 percent increase in monthly benefits for participants through September 2021. Regulatory changes expanded eligibility and enabled more participants to use benefits online.

The Pandemic-Electronic Benefit Transfer program was created and then expanded to support families whose children would have been receiving meals at school or child care but could not because of pandemic-related closures. USDA withdrew a proposed rule that would have resulted in millions of people losing SNAP benefits.

Finally, USDA implemented updates to the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP), which calculates food costs and considers the latest nutrition research to determine SNAP benefit levels for all participants. These updates, which took effect in October 2021, will provide SNAP participants with an additional $36 extra per month, on average—approximately a 27 percent increase compared with pre-pandemic benefit levels.

Related Research

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The Impact of Increasing SNAP Benefits

Fast Facts

SNAP has wide-ranging impacts

2.9 million

SNAP lifted 2.9 million people out of poverty in 2020.

33%

Food insecurity among children dropped by 33 percent after their families received SNAP benefits for six months.

$36

The average SNAP monthly benefit will be $36 higher with the revisions to the Thrifty Food Plan than it would have been without those updates.

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PRIORITY POLICY