The Food Stamp Program is the nation's most important food assistance program, especially for children. It provides more substantial nutrition assistance to low‑income children than all of the nation's child nutrition programs combined. More than half of all food stamp participants are children, and over 80 percent of food stamp benefits go to families with children. Furthermore, the Food Stamp Program is the only social program that creates a national benefit floor under nearly all categories of poor households, assisting low-income children and their families as well as low‑income elderly, disabled and unemployed individuals.
Moreover, food stamps serve as an important work support by helping low‑wage workers make ends meet. Leaders from across the political spectrum haxve agreed that a family supported by a full‑time, year‑round, minimum-wage worker should not have to live in poverty. Such a family, however, will fall short of the poverty line by 25 percent, even after counting the Earned Income Tax Credit, if the family does not receive food stamps. And because food stamps (unlike the EITC) come to families throughout the year, they can help these families meet monthly expenses.