SNAP Helps Millions of Workers in Low-Paying Jobs

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps) provides millions of workers with income to help feed their families. Roughly 15.7 million workers, or about 10 percent of all workers, are in households where someone participated in SNAP in the last year, CBPP analysis of data from the 2022 American Community Survey finds. In several occupations — including home health and personal care aides, school bus monitors, agricultural graders and sorters, and maids and housekeeping cleaners — more than 1 in 5 workers participate in SNAP.

Some of the most common occupations in the country, though vital to the overall economy, have low pay, unpredictable scheduling, and few benefits. Many workers in these occupations turn to SNAP to supplement low and fluctuating pay and to help them get by during spells of unemployment. Most workers who participate in SNAP are in service (e.g., personal care aides or cooks), professional (e.g., teacher assistants), transportation (e.g., truck drivers), administrative support (e.g., customer service representatives), or sales (e.g., cashiers) occupations.

• Many workers and their families participate in SNAP while they are working or are looking for work. SNAP’s program and benefit structure supports workers. While many participants work while participating in SNAP, many also apply for benefits to support them and their families while they are between jobs. Thus, many workers participate in SNAP for part of the year and stop participating when they are earning more. Three-quarters of the workers who were eligible for SNAP at some time during the year were eligible for only part of the year, an Agriculture Department study found.^[1]
• Millions of workers have jobs with low pay. One study estimated that 1 in 9 workers have jobs with pay that would leave their family below the poverty line despite having full-time, year-round work.^[2] Moreover, the number of low-paying jobs is expected to grow: 4 of the 6 occupations that are expected to add the most new jobs over the next decade have median wages ranging from 22 to 30 percent lower than the national median. They are home health/personal care aides, restaurant cooks, stockers and order fillers, and hand laborers and freight, stock, and material movers.^[3]
• Low-paying jobs often have scheduling practices that contribute to workers’ low and unstable incomes. Roughly 4 million workers, particularly in low-paying occupations such as service, sales, and office support, worked part time in 2024 but would have preferred a full-time job.^[4] Also, many workers, disproportionately those who are Black, young, or without a college degree, work in jobs that have irregular or unpredictable schedules, which can change from week to week with little, if any, advance notice and little opportunity for input. This not only causes workers’ incomes to fluctuate but also creates barriers to retaining employment and career advancement by making it harder to arrange child care, search for a new job, or attend school or training. In addition, workers with unstable work schedules are more likely to have negative health outcomes, such as greater psychological distress.^[5]
• Many low-paying jobs lack benefits such as paid sick leave and health insurance. For example, only about 58 percent of workers in the lowest wage quartile had paid sick leave in 2023, a national survey found, compared to 80 percent of all workers. And fewer of these workers had access to paid vacation.^[6] Workers without these benefits can be forced to leave their jobs when they get sick or have to care for a family member. Workers in low-paying jobs also are less likely to have access to unemployment insurance, especially Black, Latinx, and women workers.^[7] One study found that workers in low-paying jobs are over twice as likely as other workers to be unemployed but less than half as likely to be covered by unemployment insurance.^[8]
• SNAP helps millions of workers, who face challenges from low wages, insufficient or changing hours, and overall job insecurity, feed their families. Workers who participate in SNAP are likelier than workers overall to have jobs in service occupations and in industries such as retail and hospitality — jobs that are likely to have low wages, limited or no benefits, and unpredictable schedules.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic created a further disadvantage for many workers in low-paying industries and occupations that required face-to-face encounters, disproportionately women, workers of color, workers without a bachelor’s degree, and workers born in another country. These workers, many of whom participate in SNAP, experienced massive employment and earning losses in early 2020 during the height of the economic crisis.

SNAP Provides Low-Wage Workers With Needed Food Benefits

More than two-thirds of SNAP participants at any given point in time are not expected to work, primarily because they are children, older adults, or disabled people. Most SNAP participants who can work do so. Many workers participate in SNAP for part of the year, while they are between jobs or during periods when their earnings or their work hours are low, and then stop participating when they are earning more.^[9] As a result, a snapshot of how many current SNAP participants are working undercounts workers, as many workers only participate in SNAP when they are temporarily out of work and workers may cycle in and out of eligibility.

Among working-age, non-disabled people who participated in SNAP in a typical month in 2015, 55 percent were working in that month and 74 percent worked in the 12 months before or after that month, based on U.S. Census Bureau data. Rates were even higher when including other household members: 89 percent of households with children and a working-age, non-disabled adult included at least one member who worked in this 25-month period (see Figure 1). ^[10] Many SNAP participants who didn’t work over that period reported caregiving responsibilities or faced barriers to work, including an injury or health condition.

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More recent annual Census data also show that most SNAP households who are able to work do work. Eighty-six percent of households that included a non-disabled working-age adult and reported receiving SNAP at some point in 2021 had earnings during the year, based on American Community Survey data.^[11]

SNAP benefits are designed to support workers and their families. The SNAP benefit formula bases benefits on a household’s income and expenses, phases out benefits slowly as earnings rise, and includes a 20 percent deduction for earned income to reflect the cost of work-related expenses and to further assist workers. As a result, SNAP benefits fall by only 24 to 36 cents for each additional dollar of earnings for most households. In addition, workers whose pay fluctuates can qualify for higher benefits when their earnings decline, which can help smooth out income for workers with variable hours and pay.^[12]

Low-Paying Jobs Are Common and Expected to Grow

There is no single definition of “low-paying” jobs, but by any definition the term fairly characterizes the jobs of millions of American workers. One study estimated that 11.4 percent of workers in 2017 were paid wages that would leave them in poverty for full-time, year-round work.^[13] Another study found that 12 to 30 percent of U.S. workers were in jobs that pay wages that would leave a primary wage-earner supporting a family in poverty or close to poverty in 2013; the vast majority of workers in low-paying jobs were at least age 22, and many were supporting families.^[14] Other research examined different measures of poverty among workers and found that in the preferred estimate, about 9 to 11 percent of working family heads lived in poverty in 2012; some 20 to 24 million people lived in households in poverty that were headed by a person with a job.^[15]

Occupations that pay low wages are numerous and many are growing. Four of the six occupations that are expected to add the most new jobs over the next decade — home health/personal care aides, restaurant cooks, stockers and order fillers, and hand laborers and freight, stock, and material movers — have median wages ranging from 22 to 30 percent below the national median.^[16] For example, the number of home health and personal care aide jobs is expected to grow by 22 percent, and their median pay is 70 percent of the median for all occupations.

Conditions of Many Low-Paying Jobs Make SNAP Especially Critical

Workers in many low-paying jobs face conditions such as inadequate work hours, irregular schedules, and lack of benefits. These indicators of low job quality are especially common in service occupations and in industries such as retail and hospitality — occupations and industries where workers are disproportionately likely to participate in SNAP. This section of the report examines the characteristics of low-paying jobs more broadly — including, but not limited to, the jobs of workers participating in SNAP — to understand the labor market conditions that workers participating in SNAP face.

Involuntary Part-Time Work and Irregular Schedules

Roughly 4 million workers worked part time for economic reasons in 2024.^[17] These “involuntary” part-time workers would prefer to work more hours but can’t due to economic reasons.^[18] Workers in low-paying jobs are likelier than other workers to be working part time when they would like a full-time job. Service workers accounted for about one-third (31 percent) of all involuntary part-time workers; sales and office workers made up about another fifth (19 percent).^[19]

Many workers in low-paying jobs must also cope with irregular or unpredictable scheduling; workers who are Black, young, or without a college degree are likeliest to be affected.^[20] Their schedules (both the number and timing of work hours) may vary from week to week, and employers may give little advance notice of schedules, expect workers to be on call, and not allow workers significant input on their schedule.^[21]

Studies show that irregular schedules are more prevalent in service occupations and industries such as food service and retail. For example, one study of workers ages 26 to 32 found that 90 percent of those in the food service industry experience fluctuations in their number of hours from week to week, and close to two-thirds get less than one week’s notice of their schedule.^[22] Another study found that non-disabled workers whose families participated in at least one safety net program (SNAP, TANF, rental assistance, or Medicaid or other public health insurance) in the past year were more likely to report working a rotating, split, or irregular shift schedule, compared to workers whose families did not participate in such a program. While most of these workers usually worked 20 or more hours a week at their main job, over half reported that the hours at their main job varied by ten or more hours in the past month.^[23]

A growing number of workers are engaged in self-employment, including “gig work,” or work that is not paid through a wage or salary or governed by a contract. These workers have few benefits, such as paid leave, and face barriers to collective bargaining.^[24] The growth in self-employment has been aided by the emergence of online platforms and smartphone applications connecting clients with gig workers.^[25] The growth in gig workers over the past decade appears to be concentrated among self-employed passenger drivers.^[26] More research is needed to assess the scope of gig work and its impact on workers’ income and well-being; for example, research could investigate which workers benefit from the flexible schedules and hours of gig work, and which workers (who may simply lack other opportunities) experience the downsides, such as unstable and low-paying work with few benefits.^[27]

Frequent changes in the number of work hours can increase hardship in other areas of life. Workers with unstable work schedules are more likely to have negative health outcomes, such as higher levels of psychological distress or reductions in sleep quality.^[28] Also, over half of workers with incomes below $40,000 struggled to pay bills due to income fluctuations (the biggest reason for which was irregular work schedules) in 2015.^[29] Surveys and interviews of workers in low-wage industries, particularly retail and food service, provide evidence of the hardship these workers face, such as income instability and difficulty arranging child care or attending school.^[30]

Few Benefits Such as Paid Leave

Low-paying jobs are less likely to provide benefits such as paid leave, and workers who lose low-paying jobs are less likely to receive unemployment insurance benefits. As a result, workers who get sick or have caregiving responsibilities may lose their jobs or delay needed health care, and workers who become unemployed — which is likelier for low-wage workers — face greater hardship. Studies show that access to paid leave tends to be lower among Black and Latinx workers.^[31]

Workers in low-paying jobs are less likely to be able to take a paid day off for vacation, illness, or to take care of a family member or a newborn baby. While about 80 percent of all workers had access to paid sick leave in 2023, only about 58 percent of workers with wages in the lowest quartile did (see Figure 2), and fewer of these workers had access to paid vacation time.^[32] Low-wage private industry workers were also less likely to have access to paid or unpaid family and medical leave than those with higher wages.^[33]

Workers without paid sick or vacation leave lose wages when they take unpaid leave because they are sick or need to care for a sick child; they may end up losing their job. For example, one study that controlled for other characteristics of workers found that workers with access to paid sick leave or paid vacation were more likely to stay in their current job. This stability reduces the disruptive job separations that create income gaps.^[34]

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Studies also show that workers without access to paid family leave are likelier to have to quit their jobs to care for a child or other family member. For example, one study found that first-time mothers who had access to and used paid leave were less likely to quit their jobs before or after birth and more likely to work for the same employer upon returning to work.^[35] Another study found that women with less than a high school education were likelier to quit their jobs following the birth of a child than women with higher educational attainment.^[36] An assessment of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 found that, two decades after its passage, almost two-thirds of workers with family income below the median who took family leave received no pay or partial pay for their leave.^[37]

Workers in low-paying jobs are also significantly less likely to have access to other benefits, such as health insurance and retirement benefits.^[38] Lack of these benefits, which enable workers to get the health care they need (including care that helps them keep working) and save for their future, can lead to worsened outcomes and increase the probability of poverty in retirement.^[39] Fortunately, states that have expanded Medicaid to more adults with low incomes through the Affordable Care Act have made affordable health coverage available to many workers whose jobs don’t offer it and made it possible for people with diabetes and other chronic illnesses to work by helping them control these conditions.^[40]

Higher Turnover, Less Access to Unemployment Insurance

Research suggests that low wages and other factors such as unpredictable schedules, lack of schedule control, and involuntary part-time work contribute to high job turnover, which is more common in low-paying jobs.^[41] For example, workers may lose jobs when scheduling conflicts such as child care prohibit them from maintaining required hours.^[42] In 2021, about 1 in 5 households that lacked needed access to child care due to pandemic-related closures suffered employment loss because they needed to care for their children. Among households with a child under age 12, Black households and households with low incomes were more likely to report inadequate access to child care.^[43] In some industries that pay low wages, the number of temporary and other short-term jobs with less job security has grown.^[44] As a result, workers in low-paying jobs experience more periods of unemployment than their higher-paid counterparts.^[45]

Workers in low-paying jobs are also less likely to be eligible for and apply for unemployment insurance, even though they are more likely to experience periods of unemployment and have fewer resources to fall back on when they are out of work. Unemployment insurance is a federal-state partnership that provides workers with income to replace lost wages when they become unemployed.^[46] A number of analyses have found that some of the program’s eligibility requirements (both monetary and non-monetary) put low-paid workers — Black, Latinx, and women workers in particular — at a disadvantage.^[47] One Government Accountability Office (GAO) study found that though workers in low-paying jobs are over twice as likely to be unemployed, they are less than half as likely to be covered by unemployment insurance.^[48] Another GAO study found that racial and ethnic differences in receipt of unemployment insurance persisted during the COVID-19 pandemic.^[49] Workers with lower education levels are less likely to be eligible for unemployment insurance and also less likely to apply for it than workers with more education.^[50]

Many SNAP Participants Work in Jobs With Low Pay, Few Supports

Millions of workers have jobs with low pay and few benefits, and many of them turn to SNAP to help put food on the table. Roughly 15.7 million workers, or about 10 percent of all workers, are in households where someone participated in SNAP in the last year, CBPP analysis of data from the 2022 American Community Survey finds.^[51] Workers participating in SNAP work in a diverse array of industries and occupations, but most have jobs with low wages. In fact, all ten of the occupations with the largest numbers of SNAP participants have median wages at or below the national median for all occupations, according to the May 2022 Occupational Employment Survey of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (See Appendix Table 6.)

SNAP Participants Often Work in Education, Health, Retail, 
Hospitality, Manufacturing Industries

Seventy percent of workers participating in SNAP are concentrated in five major industries: education and health services, wholesale and retail trade, leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, and manufacturing. A greater share of SNAP participants work in some of these areas — such as hospitality and retail — than workers overall. (See Appendix Table 1 for details.)

• Education and health services. About 22 percent of workers participating in SNAP work in education and health services. Their most common occupations include personal care aides, nursing assistants, home health aides, teaching assistants, and registered nurses. Over two-thirds of these workers work in elementary and secondary schools, hospitals, home health care services, individual and family services, child day care services, and nursing care facilities.
• Wholesale and retail trade. About 17 percent of workers participating in SNAP work in wholesale and retail trade. Their most common occupations include cashiers, retail salespersons, first-line retail supervisors, stockers and order fillers, and laborers and movers. About half of them work in general merchandise stores, grocery stores, clothing stores, electronic shopping and mail-order houses, gasoline stations, and building material and supplies.
• Leisure and hospitality. About 13 percent of workers participating in SNAP work in the hospitality sector. Their most common occupations include cooks, waitstaff, cashiers, fast food and counter workers, and food service managers.^[52] The majority work in restaurants and other food services — the largest single industry among SNAP participants as a whole, employing about 10 percent of SNAP participants. (See Appendix Table 2 for a list of the most common industries where participants work.)
• Professional and business services. About 10 percent of workers participating in SNAP work in professional and business services, with the greatest share in services to buildings and dwellings, landscaping, and employment services. Their most common occupations include landscaping and groundskeeping workers, janitors and building cleaners, security guards and gambling surveillance officers, maids and housekeeping cleaners, and customer service representatives.
• Manufacturing. About 9 percent of workers participating in SNAP work in manufacturing, including industries related to motor vehicles (and related equipment), non-specified manufacturing industries, and animal slaughtering and processing. Their most common occupations are other assemblers and fabricators,^[53] miscellaneous production workers, laborers and movers, first-line supervisors of production and operator workers, and metal and plastic workers.
• Other industries. About 30 percent of workers participating in SNAP work in construction (7 percent), transportation and utilities (7 percent), other services (6 percent),^[54] and other industries such as financial activities, public administration, and agriculture (10 percent).

While overall about 10 percent of all workers participated in SNAP in the last year, in several industries — including home health care services, barber shops, and taxi and limousine service — more than 1 in 6 workers participate in SNAP. (See Figure 3. See Appendix Table 3 for details.)

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SNAP Participants Often Work in Service, Professional, Transportation and Material Moving, and Office Support Occupations

Close to two-thirds of workers participating in SNAP work in the major occupation groups of service, professional, transportation and material moving, and office and administrative support. (See Appendix Table 4 for details.)

• Service. Some 28 percent of workers participating in SNAP work in service occupations. The most common include personal care aides, cooks, janitors and building cleaners, waitstaff, and nursing assistants.
• Professional and related. About 14 percent of workers participating in SNAP have professional jobs, most commonly as teaching assistants, registered nurses, or elementary and middle school teachers.
• Transportation and material moving. About 12 percent of workers participating in SNAP work in transportation or material moving occupations, including driver/sales workers and truck drivers, laborers and material movers, and stockers and order fillers.
• Office and administrative support. Some 11 percent of workers participating in SNAP work in office/administrative support occupations, such as customer service representatives, receptionists and information clerks, secretaries and administrative assistants, office clerks, and couriers and messengers.
• Other. Some 36 percent of workers participating in SNAP work in sales, business and finance, production, or other occupations.

In several occupations — including cooks, cashiers, and telemarketers — more than 1 in 5 workers participate in SNAP. (See Figure 4. See Appendix Table 5 for details.)

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Service occupations tend to pay low wages. In 2020, for example, more than 60 percent of workers in building and grounds maintenance occupations, and nearly 80 percent of workers in food preparation and serving, had wages under $14.75 an hour. (Only about 33 percent of workers overall had wages this low.)^[55] Similarly, 73 percent of workers in service occupations earned at or below the federal minimum wage in 2022.^[56]

SNAP Responds When Income From Work Is Insufficient

Because SNAP participants work in many industries and occupations that feature involuntary part-time work and irregular scheduling, they may participate in SNAP to supplement their low incomes due to insufficient or fluctuating hours. Similarly, because these jobs often have high turnover, workers may participate in SNAP during periods of unemployment or underemployment.

In sum, for millions of people, work does not itself guarantee steady or sufficient income to provide for their families. SNAP responds by providing workers and their families with supplementary income to buy food.

Appendix I

Appendix II: Methodology

This report (including the various Appendix tables) analyzed data from the 2022 American Community Survey (ACS) to examine the occupations and industries of civilian workers who were in households that reported participating in SNAP in the last 12 months. In the ACS, there were 48.3 million people who reported participating in SNAP at any point in the last 12 months. Of those individuals, 15.7 million reported they were working at the time of the survey.

These data are illustrative of the occupations and industries of workers in families participating in SNAP, but with several caveats with regards to measurement of SNAP participation and work. First, the ACS measures SNAP at the household level, and individuals in SNAP households may not be eligible for participation (such as ineligible students or non-citizens) even though other household members participate in SNAP. Second, reporting of SNAP receipt is imperfect, and there is frequently under-reporting of SNAP receipt in survey data. Third, SNAP receipt includes participation at any point in the last year for any length of time, while questions about work cover the previous week only. A household’s participation in SNAP may not coincide with work, such as when a household member gains employment after having received SNAP during a period of unemployment.

Because SNAP participants frequently turn to SNAP when they lose a job, monthly work rates are significantly lower among SNAP recipients at a given point in time than among those who received SNAP at any point in the last year. For example, in SNAP administrative data, about 43 percent of households with at least one person aged 18 to 59 who wasn’t disabled had someone who was working while participating in SNAP in pre-pandemic 2020. By comparison, 86 percent of households with at least one working-age, non-disabled adult who reported participating in SNAP in the last year had a member who worked at some point during the year, 2021 ACS data show. Characteristics of SNAP households in the ACS represent the work profile of households currently or recently participating in SNAP.