Every other Tuesday, the team behind Civics 101 joins NHPR’s All Things Considered host Julia Furukawa to talk about how our democratic institutions actually work.
There have been a lot of changes recently to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP. People across the country are seeing new restrictions and new requirements.
Civics 101 host Hannah McCarthy joins Julia this week to talk about SNAP, how it was designed, why it was created and what these changes mean for the program.
Transcript
Hannah, why was SNAP created and what issues were the government trying to address?
So SNAP is a rebranding of a program that was originally referred to as food stamps. Food stamps were originally introduced during the Great Depression. This is a time when U.S. farmers were struggling due to post-World War I food surplus and low food prices, and other Americans were struggling to afford even that low priced food on the shelves. The program was both about feeding hungry Americans and about stabilizing the industry and economy, not just the farmers, but grocery store owners as well.
That program worked pretty well. And when it had worked, it was ended. But food insecurity did not go away. So after decades of studies and reports and proposed legislation, the food stamp program became permanent with the Food Stamp Act of 1964. The stamps themselves were replaced with EBT or electronic benefit transfer cards in 1990, and the program was renamed SNAP in 2008.
So let's talk about the way SNAP is designed. How did they decide things like how much the benefits are, eligibility or other restrictions?
So eligibility itself is determined by looking at a number of factors. Those include income, household size, assets, proof of employment, immigration status. For that last one, I can tell you that undocumented immigrants have never been eligible for SNAP in the U.S.
The actual benefit amount is based on something called the Thrifty Food Plan. This is a calculation created by the United States Department of Agriculture. It's their formula for what they determine it should cost to buy food for a “nutritious, practical, cost effective diet prepared at home.” And then it's based on your age and your sex group. So you've got bracket breakdowns for children between 1 and 11 years old, and men and women between 12 and 71 years old.
There are a lot of critiques and studies of the Thrifty Food Plan. There are many proposed alternatives, but that is what the federal government uses right now.
There have been several changes to SNAP in recent months on the federal level. What are some of those changes and what do they signify more broadly?
The “Big, Beautiful Bill” made some major changes to SNAP. It significantly cut the program overall. It reduced it by about 20%. It created a new work requirement that will mandate that parents of school aged children over 14 and older adults aged 55 through 64 now must work 20 hours per week, or they can only receive SNAP benefits for three months out of a three-year period. Estimates indicate that this work requirement is going to result in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people falling off the SNAP roll.
Certain lawfully present non-citizens who used to be eligible for SNAP, including refugees and asylum seekers, are no longer eligible.
Another major change is that states, now states have historically footed 50% of SNAP administrative costs, will have to cover 75% of costs by 2027, and by 2028, they're going to have to pay a portion of that SNAP benefit itself if they make a certain number of mistakes, if they pay a little too much or a little too little.
So with those additional work requirements, which will create a great deal more paperwork and the increased administrative costs states are now facing, they are also now facing the task of making fewer mistakes despite the increased burden on the administration of SNAP.
