Recent Increase in SNAP Purchasing Power Invests in Children’s Health and Well-Being

Congress in the bipartisan 2018 farm bill directed the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to update the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP), which is used to set benefit levels for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), to more accurately reflect the cost of a healthy diet.^[1] This science-driven reevaluation, completed in August 2021, increased the purchasing power of SNAP benefits effective in October 2021 for the first time in decades. (Previously, the TFP had been adjusted only for inflation since the 1970s.) The added benefits are helping families, including those with children, afford a healthy diet.

SNAP forms a critical foundation for the health and well-being of children, delivering more nutrition assistance to low-income children than any other federal program. SNAP lifts millions of families with children out of poverty, reduces the depth and severity of poverty for millions more, and alleviates food insecurity. SNAP’s support also can have important, long-lasting effects, studies show — improving health, education, and economic outcomes that extend from childhood into adulthood.

A large body of research found that, prior to the TFP revision, SNAP benefits fell well short of what households need to ensure a healthy diet; many households ran out of benefits before month’s end, which increased their risk of food insecurity.^[2] The revised TFP increased maximum benefits by 21 percent. Though this increase sounds large, average benefits rose from only about $4.25 per person per day (not counting temporary, pandemic-related increases) to about $5.45 per person per day in fiscal year 2022 — a modest but meaningful increase for millions of households. For households with children, the revised TFP raised average monthly benefits from $420 to $542. Roughly two-thirds of the added benefits from the TFP increase — or $1 billion per month — are going to households with children; 40 percent are going to households with income below 50 percent of the federal poverty level. (See Table 1 for state-by-state impacts.) The TFP increase will lift more than 1 million children above the poverty line.

Households With Children, Children of Color More Likely to Be Food Insecure

In 2019 (before the TFP increase and temporary pandemic-related benefits), 13.6 percent of households with children under age 18 experienced food insecurity, compared to 9.3 percent of households without children.^[3] Children of color face even higher rates of food insecurity. Nearly 1 in 4 Black households with children and more than 1 in 6 Hispanic households with children (based on the race or ethnicity of the parent) were food insecure in 2019, compared to roughly 1 in 10 white households with children.^[4] (See Figure 1.)

Share Chart on Facebook Share Chart on Twitter

Chart

Food insecurity can have lasting negative consequences for children’s health and development.^[5] Studies link food insecurity among children with reduced intake of some key nutrients, health problems, behavioral issues, and mental health conditions. These problems, in turn, can lower children’s test scores, their likelihood of graduating from high school, and their future earnings. Moreover, parents struggling to meet basic needs often report high levels of stress, which can have serious consequences for their children’s emotional and behavioral outcomes.

Even short periods of food insecurity pose long-term risks for children. Conversely, interventions that provide access to affordable food and reduce food insecurity have been linked to better health for young children as well as long-term improvements in health and longevity, greater high school completion, and higher earnings and self-sufficiency in adulthood.^[6]

More Adequate SNAP Benefits Reduce Food Insecurity, Improve Long-Term Well-Being

Research shows more adequate SNAP benefits can reduce food insecurity. This, in turn, can have positive long-term impacts such as supporting economic mobility and reducing health care costs. Children participating in SNAP face lower risks of nutritional deficiencies and poor health, which can affect their health over their lifetimes. SNAP also can help children succeed in school. One study, for example, found that test scores among students in SNAP households are highest for those receiving benefits two to three weeks before the test. This suggests that SNAP does more to ensure an adequate diet before the end of the month, when benefits often run out, and that students learn better during the weeks when they have had access to more adequate food.^[7]

The revised TFP has not been in place long enough for researchers to assess its impact on food security, nutrition, and health; nor have the temporary expansions in food assistance put in place during the pandemic. Nevertheless, some important lessons can be drawn from a similar (albeit smaller and temporary) increase in SNAP benefits made in response to the Great Recession. The 2009 Recovery Act increased maximum SNAP benefits by 13.6 percent in April 2009; benefits remained higher than they would have been until November 2013, when most participants saw their benefits reduced. Taking advantage of this natural experiment, researchers found that the temporary benefit increase:

• Reduced food insecurity and increased spending on food and other essentials. Researchers at USDA’s Economic Research Service, for example, found that food expenditures by low-income households increased by about 5 percent and food insecurity declined by 2 percentage points from 2008 to 2009.^[8] Conversely, food insecurity rose as the Recovery Act increase was eroded by inflation and eventually ended in November 2013.^[9]
• Improved children’s access to health care. Specifically, children in households eligible for SNAP were less likely than children in households with income slightly above the SNAP eligibility threshold to forgo or delay needed medical care and medications because they could not afford it, one study found.^[10] This suggests that families may redirect funds to improve their children’s use of health care, particularly prescription drugs, when they receive additional resources to purchase food.
• Fewer nutrition-related health risks. There is some evidence that the Recovery Act increase in SNAP benefits was associated with healthier weight outcomes among low-income youth.^[11] Other research, not directly tied to the Recovery Act increase, has linked higher SNAP benefits with fewer emergency room visits to treat childhood asthma.^[12]

Recent research also suggests that raising SNAP benefits not only increases low-income households’ spending on food but also improves the nutritional quality of their diets. Economists simulating an increase in SNAP benefits equivalent to the 2021 TFP increase, based on the food purchasing patterns of SNAP households, found that it resulted in increases in food spending (with larger increases for food prepared at home) as well as small but statistically significant improvements in the nutritional quality of food purchases. The positive effects were slightly larger for households with children. Among households with children, the benefit increase is projected to increase the relative amount of total fruit and whole fruit purchased and the quantity of several key nutrients, such as iron and calcium, by 6.5 to 7.7 percent.^[13]

More Adequate SNAP Benefits Also Reduce Child Poverty

A major report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine documented compelling evidence of SNAP’s poverty-reducing importance in the lives of children and their families.^[14] SNAP is second only to the combined effects of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the refundable portion of the Child Tax Credit in lifting children above the poverty line, and no program is more effective than SNAP in lifting children out of deep poverty (income less than half of the poverty line). SNAP also improves food security and health outcomes for children and their families.

Of the 2.4 million people whom the TFP increase will lift above the poverty line, more than 1 million are children.^[15] The increase will cut the number of children participating in SNAP whose families have annual incomes (including SNAP and other government benefits) below the poverty line by 15 percent and reduce the number of children in poverty overall by 12 percent, we estimate. It will reduce the severity of poverty for another 20.5 million people, including 6.2 million children.^[16]