Best Way to Be Successful in My Food Stamp Eligibility Review
Am J Public Health. 2019 December; 109(12): 1636–1640.
Links of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program With Food Insecurity, Poverty, and Health: Bear witness and Potential
Abstract
The Supplemental Diet Assistance Programme (SNAP) is a highly effective program, vital to our nation's wellness and well-being. SNAP'south entitlement funding structure allows it to provide benefits to anyone who meets the program's eligibility requirements, and this structure also enables SNAP to respond quickly when need increases. Inquiry shows that SNAP reduces poverty for millions, improves food security, and is linked with improved wellness.
Despite SNAP's successes, there is room to build on its considerable accomplishments. Bear witness suggests that electric current benefit levels are non acceptable for many households. Some vulnerable groups have limited SNAP eligibility, and some eligible individuals face barriers to SNAP participation.
Policymakers should address these shortcomings past increasing SNAP benefits and expanding SNAP eligibility to underserved groups. The federal government and states should likewise go along improving policies and procedures to amend admission for eligible individuals.
SNAP—the Supplemental Diet Assistance Program, formerly the Food Stamp Programme—is America's most important nutrient assistance programme. SNAP helps shut to xl million Americans afford a nutritious nutrition in an average calendar month. About 90% of recipients are in families with children, elderly people, or those with disabilities.1
SNAP focuses benefits on households with the lowest incomes: households in poverty receive almost 92% of SNAP benefits, and households in deep poverty receive 55% of benefits.one SNAP benefits average only about $1.40 per person per meal. Despite a minor do good that may be inadequate for many families, SNAP has contributed to measurable improvements in the wellness and well-beingness of Americans.
Much of SNAP's success is attributable to its entitlement construction. SNAP benefits are available to anyone who meets the program's eligibility rules. This enables SNAP to answer quickly and effectively when demand increases, such as during an economic downturn or subsequently a natural disaster. SNAP enrollment rises when more than people get eligible, such as during a weaker economy, and falls when the economy improves (Effigy i). During the Great Recession of 2007 through 2009, for example, SNAP expanded past about 20 1000000 people, only enrollment has since fallen by 7 1000000 people and continues to autumn.
Tracking Changes in Share of About-Poor Population and Share of Population Receiving SNAP: Usa, 1991–2018
Note. SNAP = Supplemental Nutrition Assist Programme. Poverty estimates are annual estimates. SNAP shares of resident population are calendar year averages.
Source. Usa Census Agency; US Section of Agronomics.
FOOD INSECURITY, POVERTY, AND Health
SNAP, along with other federal nutrition assistance programs, has largely eliminated severe hunger and malnutrition in the United States, although more needs to exist done to eliminate food insecurity. A team of doctors visiting areas in the rural South and Appalachia in the late 1960s were stunned to detect children with symptoms associated with malnutrition.2 In response, President Richard Nixon and lawmakers from both major political parties established national eligibility and benefit standards for the Food Stamp Program and eased enrollment barriers. The team returned a decade later on, after the program had expanded nationwide, and found dramatic comeback, especially among children. They ended that the Food Stamp Program had a greater touch on improving quality of life and nutrition than any other social program.2
Evaluating SNAP's bear on is hard because of its broad coverage and because participants may differ in important, just unmeasurable means from nonparticipants. Participation is voluntary, and eligible households with greater unmet nutrient needs are likelier to apply for SNAP. Although it would by and large not exist viable to measure all of SNAP'due south impacts using randomized command trials, nonexperimental studies with rigorous research designs that account for selection bias have yielded compelling evidence that SNAP reduces food insecurity (when households lack resources to enable them consistent access to nutritious food) and poverty. Research in the past decade has also revealed associations between SNAP participation and positive wellness outcomes.
In 2017, eleven.8% of households experienced nutrient insecurity, including 4.v% with very depression food security (i.e., those in which household members have deportment such every bit eating less than they would like because of difficulty affording food).3 SNAP participation reduces nutrient insecurity by up to 30%, even more than for some populations, recent evidence from studies with strong inquiry designs shows (Figure ii).4
Household Nutrient Security Condition Among Households New to SNAP and After Half dozen Months: U.s.a., 2012
Annotation. SNAP = Supplemental Nutrition Assist Program. "Food insecure" means household lacked consistent admission to nutritious nutrient at some point during the year because of limited resources. "Household with food-insecure children" are those in which both children and adults feel food insecurity during the twelvemonth. "Very depression food security" means ≥ 1 household fellow member has to skip meals or otherwise consume less at some point during the year because they lack money. This nautical chart shows the results of a study on longitudinal data comparing households upon outset to receive SNAP and 6 months later.
Source. J. Mabli et al.four
More than generous SNAP benefits reduce nutrient insecurity farther. The 2009 Recovery Act (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Pub Fifty. No. 111–5), an economic stimulus response to the recession that included a temporary, all-embracing increment in SNAP benefits, provided a natural experiment that some researchers accept used to isolate the event of raising SNAP benefits on food insecurity. Because of the Smashing Recession, very low food security was expected to increase in 2009. Instead information technology brutal that year (when the benefit increment took effect) among low-income households likely eligible for SNAP while rise amidst households with somewhat higher incomes who are less likely to exist eligible. The Recovery Deed increment may have decreased the prevalence of very low food security among SNAP participants by roughly i tertiary.five
SNAP reduces poverty by giving benefits to households to buy groceries, allowing them to spend more of their budgets on other basic needs, such equally housing, electricity, and medical care. SNAP raised the income of 7.3 one thousand thousand people higher up the poverty line in 2016—including 3.three million children (Figure iii), more than any other plan except the Earned Income and Child Revenue enhancement Credits combined—and made millions of others less poor.half dozen It likewise lifted the income of 1.nine million children above 50% of the poverty line in 2016, more than any other benefit program.four
Millions of Adults and Children Kept To a higher place Poverty Line by SNAP: United States, 2016
Note. SNAP = Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Plan. The figure uses the Supplemental Policy Measure out (SPM) and the 2017 SPM poverty line adjusted for aggrandizement. Survey data tend to underreport authorities benefits. Nosotros corrected for this for SNAP and Supplemental Security Income and Temporary Help for Needy Families.
Source. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.6 Corrections for underreported government assistance are from the US Department of Health and Man Services Urban Institute Transfer Income Model.
A National Academies of Sciences, Technology, and Medicine skillful console plant compelling evidence of SNAP'southward crucial role in reducing poverty among children and their families. The panel found that raising SNAP benefits by 20% to 35% forth with other changes to SNAP and programs such as the housing voucher plan and Earned Income Taxation Credit would reduce childhood poverty significantly.seven
HEALTH OUTCOMES
Research shows a consistent correlation between food insecurity and health problems throughout unlike stages of life, contributing to growing recognition that food security is a leading public health priority.8 Food insecurity is linked to poorer quality diet, chronic wellness conditions such as hypertension and diabetes, and overall poorer wellness. Among children, food insecurity is also associated with frequent infections; among older adults, it is linked to more daily living limitations and lower quality of life.ix–12
Emerging research links SNAP with improved health outcomes. Adults receiving SNAP have more than positive self-assessments of their health status; they also miss fewer days of work because of illness, make fewer physician function visits, and accept a reduced likelihood of demonstrating psychological distress.thirteen–fifteen Children receiving SNAP written report better health status than do their counterparts who are non recipients, and their households are less likely to have to cede wellness care to pay for other necessary expenses.xvi,17 When compared with families who keep benefits, working families with children younger than four years who lose at least some of their SNAP benefits accept a higher risk of negative health outcomes.xviii
Receiving SNAP in early life can lead to improved outcomes afterwards on. Research that compares pregnant mothers who received nutrient assistance benefits to those who did non every bit the plan was rolling out in the 1960s and 1970s found that mothers who had access during their pregnancy gave birth to fewer low nascency weight babies.19 In a similar study, adults who were able to receive food stamps equally immature children had lower risks as adults of obesity and other weather related to eye illness and diabetes (Figure 4).twenty Some other working paper using similar methods linked receiving SNAP every bit a young kid with increased longevity and positive economic outcomes.21
Long-Term Effects of SNAP Participation: United States, 1968–2009
Note. SNAP = Supplemental Diet Assistance Program. The study compared the likelihood of adult outcomes among individuals who had access to SNAP (then food stamps) in early childhood after its introduction in the 1960s and early on 1970s with similar children who did not (because they were born before its introduction) in each county.
Source. Hoynes et al.twenty
SNAP may also help participants accept required medications by allowing them to spend money on medicine that they would have spent on food. (Taking less than the prescribed amount because of toll is a significant public health problem, affecting up to 1 in 4 working-age adults.22) Elderly individuals who participated in SNAP were xxx% less likely to have less medication than prescribed considering of cost than were nonparticipants, one study found.23
Elderly participants who receive SNAP are too less probable to be admitted to a nursing abode or infirmary than are depression-income elderly individuals who practise non participate. Findings from a written report of more 60 000 depression-income seniors bear witness that ane yr after participants started receiving SNAP, their likelihood of entering a nursing home or being hospitalized is 23% and 4% less, respectively.24 Research using longitudinal data also finds a reduction in the likelihood of hospitalization of 46% among food-insecure, elderly individuals participating in SNAP, and xviii% amidst elderly who are food secure, compared with depression-income seniors who are not participants.25
In addition, an assay of national data shows a relationship betwixt SNAP participation and reduced health care expenditures. In a study that controlled for variables that bear on spending on wellness, low-income SNAP-participating adults have almanac wellness intendance costs that are on average nearly 25% (nearly $1400) less than those of nonparticipants. The differences are even greater amid those with hypertension (nearly $2700 less) and coronary heart disease (about $4100 less).26 Two other studies designed to command for potential bias because of unobserved differences between SNAP participants and nonparticipants also constitute an association between SNAP participation and reduced health care costs of equally much as $5000 per person per yr.27,28
AREAS FOR Improvement
Although SNAP is an effective program with positive health outcomes for participants, there is room to build on its considerable accomplishments. Show shows that SNAP's pocket-sized benefits are likely insufficient to adequately supplement the income of America's poor and that increasing benefits would contribute to improved outcomes for many households.29
SNAP do good levels are calculated using a formula that is based on the cost of the United states Department of Agriculture's Thrifty Food Programme (TFP), intended to represent a diet that low-income families can buy at relatively depression cost.30 The TFP is estimated using nationwide data on the toll of a market handbasket of foods consistent with those low-income households purchase, following the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. To meet cost constraints, nutrient standards, food group requirements, and other considerations, the TFP model results in market baskets of foods that may be impractical and depart, sometimes dramatically, from what people currently consume. For example, by choosing many foods that require substantial preparation, the TFP implicitly assumes that low-income households will spend significant amounts of fourth dimension preparing meals mostly from scratch and are able to swallow a diet that differs significantly from actual consumption patterns.31,32 Furthermore, the TFP fails to run across all nutritional guidelines, does not allow spending variation considering of family unit composition, and does not adequately account for medically necessary dietary needs and restrictions.31,33,34
There is stiff show that participants often deplete their SNAP benefits and other resources to purchase food soon afterward receiving benefits, resulting in reduced nutrient consumption and other negative outcomes at the end of the month. Households spend less on food as the calendar month goes on. For the commencement 2 days after receiving benefits, households participating in SNAP spend $66 daily on food. Spending falls to less than $xviii per solar day for the residue of the month.35 Although the monthly decline in spending alone may not exist cause for alert, as households may be purchasing nutrient that lasts throughout the calendar month, evidence too suggests furnishings on food consumption: in the terminal 2 days of the month, developed SNAP participants consume 38% fewer calories per twenty-four hour period than in the days preceding.36 This monthly food consumption bike has negative consequences; children's test scores fall throughout the benefit month, and children have a greater likelihood of misbehaving in schoolhouse as the month proceeds, studies show.37–39
Many vulnerable Americans are largely or entirely ineligible to participate in SNAP. Some adults without dependent children in their household can receive just 3 months of SNAP benefits out of every 36 months. SNAP eligibility is limited to several classes of lawfully present immigrant groups, such as children, refugees, and asylees and some legal immigrant adults who have been in the United States for at least v years. Many low-income college students who need help paying for groceries are ineligible for SNAP.
Puerto Rico has an inadequate block grant for diet help—called the Nutrition Assistance Program—that it has operated since 1982. SNAP can serve all applicants who meet the program's eligibility criteria because of its entitlement structure, but the Nutrition Assistance Program must set income requirements and do good amounts below those in SNAP to stay within its fixed annual funding. This prevents the Diet Assistance Program from expanding to respond to increased need, such equally post-obit a natural disaster. The contempo devastation caused by hurricanes Irma and María, as well equally longstanding economical problems, demonstrated these limitations; although Congress provided funding for additional benefits in response to the disasters, this funding arrived much more slowly than information technology would have under SNAP and did not accost Puerto Rico's long-term need for improved food security and wellness.
States take made tremendous progress at reaching individuals eligible for SNAP by streamlining application and recertification processes, reducing paperwork requirements for participants, and using technology to process SNAP cases more than efficiently. SNAP reaches virtually people eligible for the program, with an 85% participation rate in 2016.40 Simply in several means, eligible individuals face difficulty applying or staying continued to the programme. For case, seniors have very low participation rates, below 50%.40 Too, some individuals with disabilities may face barriers in completing the enrollment process or maintaining eligibility. Some families with immigrants may face up language barriers, and recent anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric may discourage some eligible immigrants from participating. Many families nonetheless experience "churn"—exiting SNAP because of authoritative hurdles, despite being eligible, and then shortly reapplying. And many individuals who meet SNAP's eligibility requirements would also encounter the requirements of other public benefit programs but often face inefficient and duplicative enrollment processes that present barriers to access. Equally a result of differing levels of access across states, estimates of state rates of participation among eligible individuals ranged from below 60% in some states to 100% in others.
These problems point to several areas in which SNAP can build on its success. Raising SNAP benefits would allow households to amend beget healthy food. It could contribute to improved health and other positive outcomes for many households, particularly those who have insufficient resources to last throughout the month. Lifting or easing eligibility restrictions for adults without dependent children, immigrants, students, and other groups could improve their nutrient security. States can go on improving policies and procedures to enable more eligible people to apply and help participants who remain eligible stay connected to the program. States tin can also accept steps to increase cantankerous-program efficiencies, such as by allowing one program's eligibility determination to simplify the decision in another.
Primal DRIVERS OF ECONOMIC INSECURITY
SNAP improves nutrient security, reduces poverty, and is associated with improved health for millions of Americans. Although at that place are areas for improvement, information technology is of import to recognize that the central drivers of nutrient insecurity are outside the program's control.
Low-income families face multiple challenges in achieving economic security and mobility. For many low-income workers, employment does non offering a pathway to a stable income. Jobs with low wages often have unpredictable and varying schedules and do not provide key benefits such as paid ill leave and health insurance. Meanwhile, costs for basic necessities continue to rise; many low-income families face housing instability because of loftier housing costs, for case, and many cannot afford adequate childcare, with available assistance unable to lucifer needs. Although the Affordable Care Human action (ACA) has made health insurance more accessible, millions of low-income individuals remain uninsured. Some, for example, live in states that have called non to aggrandize Medicaid and thus are in a coverage gap, with incomes too high to authorize for Medicaid but below the eligibility standards for ACA premium taxation credits to purchase private coverage. Others accept an offer of employer coverage that technically qualifies as affordable only is in do not affordable. For households with piddling means to meet basic needs, financial aid is very express, equally the reach of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families has declined dramatically in the past 2 decades.
SNAP plays a disquisitional role in promoting food security and expert health. Although depression-income families may worry well-nigh whether their job will last through the month or how to afford the rent or their child's side by side dr.'s appointment, they know that SNAP can help them obtain acceptable food. Despite these important furnishings, SNAP cannot make upward for the lack of a well-paying job or a stable place to live. Analyzing SNAP'south bear on within this context; recommending policy changes that focus on the root causes of poverty, hunger, and hardship; and focusing recommendations for SNAP on policies that fall within the program's purview would aid researchers, advocates, and policymakers promote appropriate policies to build on SNAP's successes.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work draws on previous literature reviews published by the Center on Upkeep and Policy Priorities, and various staff, including Dottie Rosenbaum, Ed Bolen, Lexin Cai, and Catlin Nchako, have contributed inquiry to those pieces. Steven Carlson has published literature reviews on SNAP and links with children, health, and benefit adequacy that this article drew from as well.
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
At that place are no conflicts of interest for whatever of the authors.
HUMAN PARTICIPANT PROTECTION
No protocol blessing was necessary considering no human being participants were involved in this written report.
Footnotes
See also the AJPH Supplemental Nutrition Help Program section, pp. 1631–1677.
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Manufactures from American Journal of Public Health are provided here courtesy of American Public Wellness Association
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6836787/
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