What SNAP delays could mean for health and hunger

[00:00:14]

SARA WHITLOCK: Hello, everyone, and welcome to SciLine’s media briefing on SNAP delays, and what they mean for health and hunger. Nearly 42 million Americans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is also known as SNAP, have had their November benefits delayed. In this briefing, we’ll discuss national participation trends, sharing data about the Americans who are served by this program. We’ll also discuss evidence about the program’s impact on food insecurity and nutrition, as well as how policy decisions and local food systems impact SNAP’s effectiveness. My name is Sara Whitlock, and I’m SciLine’s scientific outreach manager.

SciLine is an editorially independent nonprofit, based at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and funded by philanthropies, so all of our services for journalists are free. Our mission is to make scientific evidence and expertise easy for journalists to use, as they cover all kinds of topics, from immigration, to business, to personal health. That might include environmental stories explicitly related to science, or personal health, and stories that are not as obvious science angles. You can access all of our services on sciline.org, which includes interview opportunities, reporting resources, and our weekly newsletter.

You can also click the blue “I Need an Expert” button any time you need to speak with a scientific expert for your story. We will look for a source with the right background, who can answer your questions before your deadline. A couple of notes before we begin. I’m joined here by three experts who have studied various aspects of the SNAP program, but I’ll let each of them introduce themselves and their areas of research. Dr. Schanzenbach, would you go ahead?

[00:01:43]

DR. DIANE SCHANZENBACH: Hi, I’m Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach. I am the McCourt Chair at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, and I study a wide range of SNAP policies, and I’ve been doing so for the last two decades.

[00:01:57]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you, and Dr. Gundersen, would you introduce yourself next?

[00:02:00]

DR. CRAIG GUNDERSEN: Yes. I’m Craig Gundersen, the Snee Family Endowed Chair and Professor in the Department of Economics at Baylor University, and I do research for about the past 30 years now on the causes and consequences of food insecurity, and on the evaluation of food assistance programs, with an emphasis on SNAP.

[00:02:17]

SARA WHITLOCK: Wonderful, thank you. And Dr. Haynes-Maslow.

[00:02:22]

DR. LINDSEY HAYNES-MASLOW: Yeah. Hi, I’m Lindsey Haynes-Maslow. I’m a professor and director of master’s programs in the Department of Health Policy and Management at UNC Chapel Hill. My research really focuses on the intersection of food and nutrition policy, as well as health policy, and how that can impact people’s health behaviors, and how policies and programs can hopefully impact them in a positive way.

[00:02:48]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you. So before we begin taking audience questions, I’m going to ask each of our panelists a few questions myself. So journalists, you can submit your questions at any time during the briefing. Just click the Q&A box at the bottom of your Zoom screen. And please let us know if you’d like your question directed at a specific panelist. We’ll be posting a recording of this briefing on our website later today, and a transcript will be added in the next few days. So with that, let’s begin. Dr. Schanzenbach, can you give a high-level overview of SNAP, its purpose, its scale, and who is eligible and served by it?

[00:03:18]

DR. DIANE SCHANZENBACH: Yes. The purpose of SNAP, which has been with us for more than 50 years, is to help low-income families put food on their table. It uses what they like to call the normal channels of trade, and that just means you can take your benefits to grocery stores, and convenience stores, other things like that, to buy the groceries that you like to eat. It’s a very large program; about one out of every eight Americans is currently on the program. Average benefits are about $188 per person per month. And so then all scaled up, that adds up to about $100 billion per year in benefits.

[00:03:58]

SARA WHITLOCK: And what are the most recent demographic and socioeconomic profiles of SNAP participants? Are they children, older adults, working families, unemployed people, etc?

[00:04:09]

DR. DIANE SCHANZENBACH: So the SNAP population looks a lot like the general low-income population, because participation in SNAP among low-income people is quite high. So about 40% of SNAP recipients are children. Another 20% are older Americans, and just to no one’s surprise, because of the aging of the baby boom population, that share of elderly has grown over the last decade or two. The rest are some combination of disabled people, parents of those children, unemployed folks. A lot of the parents with children are working, but they just don’t earn enough to make ends meet without some extra assistance from the government.

[00:04:58]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you. And how does SNAP participation vary by state, by rural versus urban settings, and what local factors might be driving those differences?

[00:05:07]

DR. DIANE SCHANZENBACH: So the main driver of cross area differences in participation in SNAP is really about the population; how many low-income families do you have there? But there are a couple of other sources of variation. One is, states can opt into or out of some simplifications of the program. So for example, the standard SNAP package says you can’t get any benefits if your income is above 130% of the poverty line, and you have to meet certain asset tests that include, how much is your car worth? Etc. Some states, most states in fact, have opted into policies that allow certain things to be waived from the asset tests, or the asset tests to be waived entirely in some cases, also that allow higher income families that have a lot of expenses, like high rent costs and earned income deduction, etc., that have incomes that are higher than 130%, more like 150-160% of the poverty line, still receive SNAP benefits.

Some of that has been changing over recent years, as some states have opted back out of those policies. Then the third is really local capacity, local, state-level norms. So we see that participation rate among those who are eligible varies across states quite a bit, and that’s largely reflective of, how burdensome do they make the application process? How readily available are applications, and assistance with applications? Etc. So that drives some of the variation.

In a recent piece that I did, I calculated out that participation rates in rural counties are just a little bit higher than urban counties. But really, every county in the United States, every congressional district in the United States, has participants in SNAP. And it’s really pretty well balanced between, this came up earlier this week, Democratic and Republican congressional districts. It’s pretty well balanced between urban and rural. It’s really, low-income populations live everywhere in the United States, and this program serves them.

[00:07:34]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you. And what local data sources can reporters use to identify SNAP enrollment numbers and gaps in their counties, or school districts, or regions?

[00:07:44]

DR. DIANE SCHANZENBACH: So those are all different data sources. The USDA provides a lot of information, both at the congressional district level, at the county level, at the state level. And that’s a quick Google. If you have trouble finding it, you can shoot me a note and I can help you out a little bit there. And similarly, the Department of Agriculture puts out information about food insecurity at the state level, and again that should just be a quick Google away, but the federal government traditionally has provided data so that people can cover this.

[00:08:23]

SARA WHITLOCK: That’s great, thank you. And let’s move on to you, Dr. Gundersen. So to start off, how does SNAP participation affect food insecurity and overall nutrition?

[00:08:33]

DR. CRAIG GUNDERSEN: I love SNAP. SNAP is just a fantastic program, and I don’t say that about all government programs; some are good, some are bad. But for the reasons Diane justly succinctly and excellently described, SNAP is an incredible program, in terms of it really reaches those who are most in need. Basically, once you have studies which properly control for what’s called non-random selection into the program, is that SNAP recipients are 20-30% less likely to be food-insecure than eligible non-participants. This is an astounding success story. If we want to talk about a success story in the United States, let’s talk about SNAP.

[00:09:12]

SARA WHITLOCK: And how can journalists use publicly available data, like the USDA’s Household Food Security survey, or Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap, to identify if their communities are experiencing high food insecurity?

[00:09:24]

DR. CRAIG GUNDERSEN: So I think that in a broad sense is, the national figures are useful to be describing what’s happened at the national level, and also you can use the current population survey, which the USDA uses to describe state level and for some large metropolitan areas. But for reporters who want more granular-level information, I generally point them to Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap. It has county-level information, congressional district-level information, and a lot of food banks provide ZIP code-level information and actually census tract-level information on food insecurity in those areas. So I think that if I was to reporters in a direction, that’s how I would generally point them to.

I always urge a little bit of caution for reporters, is there’s a lot of food insecurity, kind of put in quotes, because there’s a lot of measures out there, and a lot of distribution of various rates of food insecurity. I would always encourage reporters to say, “Does this make sense?” Given other dimensions of the issue that they’re looking at. For example, if an area is showing that they have food insecurity rates by a survey of 30% for the general population, except for a few instances, that’s much higher than we would expect, given what we know from the current population survey, which is used for the official food insecurity rate. So I think that there’s a lot of great information on Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap, and there’s some other credible things out there, but if you want really granular information, that’s where I would turn to.

[00:10:52]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you, and can you also discuss some of the potential impacts of the recent decision to end the household food security survey?

[00:10:59]

DR. CRAIG GUNDERSEN: Yeah. So the good news is that we’ve learned a lot about food insecurity. We know a lot about food insecurity, so therefore I think that that’s the good news, and in part, part of the reason why we learned so much about it is because the great work that’s been done, but also from the standpoint of that there’s this food insecurity that’s on a number of nationally representative surveys. But it’s also on literally hundreds of other surveys, and including at health care offices. So you may have actually been to a doctor or a healthcare provider and they ask you this two-item hunger vital signs. In other words, this is a really widely used survey in different contexts, and I expect it to continue to be widely used.

So the question becomes is, what do we lose when we lose this specific measure on this specific data set? And I’d like to emphasize two things. The first thing is, is that we have had this data since back in 1996, with a consistent framework since 2000. So therefore, we’re able to identify major changes that happened to food insecurity. So for example, the sharp increases that occurred in the Great Recession, or the 45% decline in food insecurity that occurred in the United States from 2014-2022, to be able to identify those.

Or, most importantly and most recently is, due to inflation there was huge increases in food insecurity in 2022 and 2023. Those are all things we would not necessarily have been able to figure out, or for that matter importantly, the magnitude of those increases. So that’s the first thing that I think that we’re missing with this, and I’m disappointed about this. The second thing that I think we’re missing with this is, it’s the gold standard. I think we really, really need a gold standard. So if somebody comes up and says, “In my community, food insecurity is 2%.” I’d be like, “I don’t think so.” We know that from the [inaudible 00:12:41] . Or conversely, if somebody says, “In my area, a wealthy area outside of D.C., my food insecurity rate here is 35%,” like, “I don’t think that’s right either.”

So in other words, it’s an important source to be able to say, “This is the gold standard. This is what food insecurity looks like.” We’re losing both of those. I think that’s really a huge problem moving forward and thinking about this.

[00:13:02]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thanks for that. And are there early signals that can alert reporters to rising food insecurity in their regions before federal or other data catch up?

[00:13:11]

DR. CRAIG GUNDERSEN: I think probably the best thing that can be done with respect to this, because Diane correctly noted of course that there’s SNAP data, but I usually think that’s kind of behind. I don’t think you always can get that in real time. We can’t also in general get food insecurity in real time. There’s a few surveys that go out on a regular basis, like there’s one through Purdue University that goes on a bimonthly basis, but that’s for the national, it doesn’t give local-level information.

What I usually turn to in thinking about this is what’s happening to the number of people coming to our food pantries and food banks. I think that’s probably the best thing. Now, you have to be really careful, so I really caution reporters about this, is there’s the supply of food and there’s the demand for food. And therefore, if the supply of food is staying similar, and we’re seeing longer lines, and we’re seeing more people, but importantly more visits, not necessarily more people but more visits, that means that there’s been an increase in demand, and that’s always of great concern.

The reason I really emphasize the supply is, over the past few years there’s a lot of food banks have been seeing – not all food banks – some food banks have been seeing declines in supply. So you’ve been having longer lines, but that may not be because of increased demand. But I think that if you’re looking for a clear, concise way to look at what’s happening, is to look at the number of visits to our food pantries, which is generally fairly quickly available.

[00:14:41]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you so much for that context. Next, we’re going to turn to Dr. Haynes-Maslow. So our first question for you is, what are some of the common barriers to SNAP access at the local level, such as administrative hurdles, stigma or other factors?

[00:14:54]

DR. LINDSEY HAYNES-MASLOW: I think it’s important to realize, and Diane spoke to this earlier, which is every state deals with SNAP a little bit differently. It has minimum guidelines that every state has to follow, but if you want to go above and beyond, you can do that. In states like mine, North Carolina, we have not really done anything in addition to what’s required. So in states like mine and other states, it can be very stigmatizing for individuals to even try to fill out an application. One, an application is an issue, because either you have to print it out and fill it out, and I’ve even had students where an example we do is we actually fill out the application and see how long it takes, and do they actually know the answers to the questions?

So if I’m working with graduate students that can’t fill out a SNAP application, I think that’s a little concerning. The other really important point that we should be aware of is that oftentimes, SNAP recipients have to go back to their Department of Social Services, whoever administers their SNAP program, on a regular basis.

So in North Carolina, you have to go back every six months. You have to meet with a caseworker. They have to go over all of your income information, every type of asset. As again, Diane spoke to, there’s asset test, and I think what I have heard through a lot of interviews and focus groups that I do is, one, trying to find time out of your day to go to a Department of Social Services that may or may not be close to you, because you need to go to the one that’s probably in your county, that can be a very long drive. We talked about rural areas earlier. So again, trying to drive there, trying to take off work, trying to sit and wait.

And then again, being interviewed time and time again and proving that you’re deserving of SNAP. And I think that can be a really big hurdle. I’ll just say, just in general, we have tried, especially, I think, everywhere in the country. We have different cultures, different communities. In the South and the Southeast in particular, we have a lot of pride. So a lot of people when they need help, they will not seek it. I’ve literally had older adults tell me that they would rather starve than go ask the federal government for a handout, and that’s how it’s viewed. And so I think it’s really concerning that, one, we already, even when we didn’t have SNAP being currently shut down and not running, we already had a lot of administrative barriers and hurdles for individuals to enroll in the program.

[00:17:27]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you for that context. How do recent policy changes affect local participation in food and security risk?

[00:17:34]

DR. LINDSEY HAYNES-MASLOW: I think the first thing on that is, I’ll start off with, whatever I say right now may be incorrect by the time we end. Policy changes are happening so quickly. Me trying to follow guidance, guidelines, I’m looking at state-level guidance, I’m looking at federal-level guidance. Sometimes there’s discrepancies. Again, if I am a professor and I am trying to keep up to date and look at my phone every 30 minutes to see what the update is, we have failed, I think, the American public, because you should not have degrees like this, and you should not be required to sit here and wait for a press release, or a news alert, or something to come out any hour of the day.

So I think the biggest concern right now, and a lot of questions I’m getting, is the fact that the new work requirements went into effect November 1st, when the program was shut down. So in order to even be on SNAP, we have work requirements, which I will say the majority of people on SNAP, if they can work, they do work. I think it’s over 60% of households that have a working adult in their family. So these work requirements say that if you’re not working so many hours a week, or if you’re not going to school, if you’re not doing a training program, you can only be on SNAP three months, and then you can’t be on it again for three years, and I’m trying to think if they actually updated that and removed even the three-year time period.

But again, there’s a lot of confusion right now going on, again, within our state. We don’t have enough funding to carry over into the next month, so our SNAP benefits have run out in this state. The guidance people are receiving is essentially, if you have any benefits that were left on your EBT card, that credit card that Diane was talking about you can use to buy groceries, they said they’ll let you use it into November. But as we all know, I think, well, hopefully by the end of this call we will all know, the majority of benefits are already exhausted by the end of the month, so people are not having extra money that’s being able to go over into November.

[00:19:31]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you. What local partnerships with schools, or clinics, or non profits, have been shown to be effective at increasing SNAP access, or maybe reducing that stigma you mentioned?

[00:19:41]

DR. LINDSEY HAYNES-MASLOW: Yeah, I think the partnerships with a lot of our food-based organizations, so charitable feeding organizations. Schools, I think, are an amazing place for any type of program or outreach, because it makes it seem like everybody’s being introduced to the same information, so it’s not as stigmatizing. So you can go into a school. You can make talking about this the norm. It can be a societal norm or that school norm, where it’s not a question of, do you have to fill out certain surveys and address all these very personal questions? Especially if you’re at the school level. So I will always say the best way to help people and talk through, “How does this work? Am I eligible? How do I apply?” It’s in person, so people can see you. They can feel like they know you.

It’s just we have to go back to a lot of in-person connections, and that’s where I think a lot of our attempts at doing everything online or digitally, we’ve lost that human connection. And because of that, I think, again, you just feel very stigmatized when you see a question. I know Craig was mentioning some of these food security screeners. It’s really hard to check a box that says, “Yes, I’m worried. I don’t know where my next meal is coming from.” That’s really hard for someone to do.

So that would probably be something that I think that we are trying to do in terms of partnerships, and just raising awareness and saying, like, “If you’re struggling, a lot of people are struggling in this country right now, and you don’t have to make a choice of, am I going to pay for my rent, or my utilities, or food?” I feel like we should be trying to make sure that people don’t have to make those choices, because then that will lead to poor decisions that will impact their health outcomes.

[00:21:28]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you. What kinds of community-level solutions are you seeing that make SNAP and other food programs work better for families over time?

[00:21:36]

DR. LINDSEY HAYNES-MASLOW: Yeah. I think the most important thing is just everything is local, even in politics, it’s all local. So the organizations that know their community members; they’re from the community, they’ve built it from the ground up, they know the neighborhoods, they know people’s names, those are the organizations that are going to be really, really helpful, because people will trust them. They might not ask me a question. They might not email me anything, but they may come over and pull someone inside and say, “Hey, do you know where I can get another meal?” Different food pantries, different food banks, different charitable feeding organizations have different rules for who can come actually get their food.

I think Craig was referencing supply and demand. There are food pantries in our area that say you can only come once a month, because we can’t actually fill the demand and we don’t have enough food to feed everybody. So these are, I think, things that we have to take into consideration, that I would say your local approach is going to be the best one. And then, we’re pretty resilient. I’ll be honest, I think, in these times, and we’ve gone through a lot in the last five years with the economy and a lot of uncertainties. So a lot of people I actually see end up relying on friends and family. They just assume that the government was never there to help them to begin with, and they will say, “I will lean on my friends, my family, maybe a faith-based location.” And so in times like these, I see the communities coming together and figuring out their own solutions when the government can’t.

[00:23:02]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you all so much for providing this context. We’re now going to begin asking questions from reporters to our experts, and I want to remind you, if you’re a reporter on the line, to please submit your questions using the Q&A box that’s at the bottom of your Zoom screen. But first, I want to ask all three of you, what are some of the biggest consequences of the current delays for people that rely on SNAP benefits, and how do you think that reporters should be highlighting them? So I’m going to start with you, Dr. Schanzenbach.

[00:23:27]

DR. DIANE SCHANZENBACH: So many families on SNAP live really paycheck to paycheck, or even some live hand to mouth. So the delays that we’re seeing, and the reduction in benefit levels, I think will absolutely end up in hunger in some cases. I think other families will find other ways to make ends meet. But if I were giving advice to a reporter, I would say go to grocery stores, go to food banks, and talk to people and ask them some of those questions.

[00:24:00]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you. Dr. Gundersen?

[00:24:03]

DR. CRAIG GUNDERSEN: Per usual, I agree. Following up on Diane’s comments, is I want to emphasize some groups that we should be paying particularly attention to. First, those with mental health disabilities. This is a time of grave crisis for them. It’s always oftentimes a time of grave crisis, but when you have these interruptions, it can be especially disruptive to them. They may be really struggling right now with this loss in SNAP benefits. They already have much, much higher rates of food insecurity than the general population, so I think we should really be thinking about those with mental health challenges.

A second group is, we have an epidemic of loneliness in our society, and I always talk about this in the context of food insecurity. In a time like this, this is especially problematic for those who are lonely and don’t have others to rely upon. As Diane mentioned, and as Lindsey talked about in her presentation, a lot of people can rely on family and communities, but for those who are lonely, oftentimes that’s really a challenge. So if I was a reporter, I would concentrate on those with mental health challenges and the challenges they face, and for those who are lonely and without social supports.

[00:25:07]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you, and Dr. Haynes-Maslow?

[00:25:10]

DR. LINDSEY HAYNES-MASLOW: I worry about the children that are enrolled in the program and are not getting benefits, because right now their parents, caregivers, whoever they’re living with, are having to make really hard decisions. I think it’s important to note for reporters that children who are food-insecure, they’re more likely to miss school due to illnesses. They have lower educational attainment. They have worse test scores, and essentially, because we know educational attainment is correlated with how much you make, that means they probably enter the workforce and they’re making lower-paying jobs. And essentially, you get back into just a cycle of you can’t get out of poverty, or being in a low-income family or community. So I think this, at the end of the day, it’s a roller-coaster ride that we need to help people get off, and we don’t need to let it to keep going.

[00:26:01]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you so much. Our first question from reporters is from the Associated Press. “The Trump Administration originally said it would provide funding for about 50% of benefits in November, then yesterday said that the funding would cover up to 65% of the maximum benefit. Can someone explain how the allocation process works when benefits are reduced below the 100% level? And under such a formula, is it possible that some participants would receive nothing? And can someone also talk about the equity or inequity in this formula?” Dr. Schanzenbach?

[00:26:31]

DR. DIANE SCHANZENBACH: Let me start. That’s right. So under normal circumstances, there is a maximum benefit amount and then what’s called the benefit reduction rate. And what that means is, if you have no income, or really no countable income, which I’m happy to answer some more questions offline on that, you get the maximum benefit. But then as your income goes up through earnings, or Social Security, or whatever, your benefit gets reduced by about 30 cents on the dollar. So that’s how SNAP benefits are normally distributed.

I think most of us expected that when they said they would send out half of the monthly benefits, they would go through that calculation and then divide it by two at the end. Yesterday, my understanding is they said, “No, what we’re going to do is reduce the maximum benefit by half, but then still take away the 30 cents on the dollar.” That then, the math doesn’t add up. For people with positive net incomes, they would then get less than 50% of the benefit because of just the way that that math works out.

I should also mention that in most household sizes, there’s a minimum benefit. I think it’s like $20 or $25 per month. So those are the benchmarks there. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has been really following the distribution of this in real time. So has Propel, which is a company that helps people save money on their cards. And so that’s where I’ve been turning to understand the real-time implications of this. Normally, I think that the benefit funding formula is really well designed. It was puzzling to me that instead of calculating the regular benefit and then taking a ratio, that they did it in this more opaque way that I think is less fair to people.

[00:28:43]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you. Does anyone else have anything to add on that front? Well, I think a really great question to follow up that one is from BlackAmericaWeb, which is, “What are key forms of action that everyday Americans can do to help those in need as a result of the SNAP deficit?”

[00:29:02]

DR. LINDSEY HAYNES-MASLOW: As I mentioned earlier, right now a lot of people are turning to local resources. So again, if you’re involved in a faith-based organization, a volunteer organization, if you know of a food pantry, a food bank, I’ll be honest, if you’re a farmer, you’re able to donate produce to these places. I think it’s also important to note, we still have areas in this country that are still – in my state in North Carolina, they’re recovering from Hurricane Helene, so even the food banks out West are still trying to build back their infrastructure. So I think the biggest thing that I would say, and I appreciate Craig mentioning social isolation aspect, is if you can, ask people how they’re doing. Again, I keep saying this to reporters.

Food is very personal, and it’s really hard to admit that you’re struggling, and it’s not easy to say, “I actually don’t know where I’m going to get food from to feed my children tonight.” So I think one, if you are able to make monetary donations, if you’re able to volunteer to help, and again, just checking in with people and seeing how they’re doing.

[00:30:10]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you so much. We have a little bit of a more granular question from a freelancer in New York. They say that, “My question comes from empirical data. I am a SNAP recipient. Not getting my $280 a month meant actually going hungry for a couple days. If one could measure the effects of hunger, what’s the yardstick? Ketones in the urine? Weight loss? How much weight loss over what period?” So, what would your recommendation be on that?

[00:30:35]

DR. CRAIG GUNDERSEN: I can take this if you want. In the United States, the way it’s been measured since 1996, is there’s an 18-item scale called the Household Food Security scale, which poses questions ranging from, “I worried whether or not my food would run out,” all the way up to for households with children, “Did my child not eat for a full day?” So this wide range of 18 questions. We say that somebody is food-insecure if they respond affirmatively to three or more of those questions. So that’s the official definition. When we say a household is food insecure, that’s what we mean when we say a household is food insecure. Some of the things you talk about in terms of some of these other things, we do look at some of the health consequences associated with food insecurity, but that’s a separate issue rather than the core, the way we look at measuring food insecurity.

[00:31:24]

DR. DIANE SCHANZENBACH: Can I just add to that a couple of things? One is, this measure of food insecurity that’s been collected for so many years is quite sensitive to things like, when more benefits go out, food insecurity goes down. When the unemployment rate increases, food insecurity goes up. So that’s one piece. The second is really getting to another aspect of the question, which is, what is hunger and how does that compare to food insecurity?

Maybe 20 years ago, there was a National Academy report really digging into the measure. And they had a hard time trying to discern, “How do we define hunger?” That is, it’s more of a personal thing, a subjective thing. Maybe ketones, something like that. The broad measure that we talk about is food insecurity, which is this self-reported consumption-based measure that’s been really studied a lot, it’s got a lot of validity to it, but is imperfectly measured. Everything is imperfectly measured.

[00:32:34]

SARA WHITLOCK: That makes sense. So we’ve touched on at various points the different economic impacts of these sorts of delays, and inability to access funding. And we have a question from The Washington Post, which is, “Are we at a risk of an eviction crisis as a partial result of SNAP funding lapses?”

[00:32:50]

DR. LINDSEY HAYNES-MASLOW: I’d be curious what others have to say, but any time that you are forcing people to make choices in terms of, again, these are lower-income individuals – I’ve interviewed over probably 100 individuals over the past 15 years. I’ve conducted focus groups. And these are individuals that are actually really good at trying to manage a budget. They know exactly how much is coming into that SNAP in their account each month. They’re trying to balance it out to the penny. So that’s something I think it’s really important to recognize right there. I think Craig, you looked like you were trying to jump in, or Diane.

[00:33:26]

DR. DIANE SCHANZENBACH: I’ll add to that. Oh, go ahead, Craig.

[00:33:29]

DR. CRAIG GUNDERSEN: The one thing I would say about this also is that when we think about SNAP, is when somebody gets SNAP, is that one of the advantages is that that frees up money for other things, including rent, including healthcare. And so, therefore, when you lose this – I also want to emphasize, when I talk to reporters, I also talk about, this was a shock. Maybe other people thought it was going to happen. I didn’t think this was going to happen. SNAP recipients weren’t thinking that this was going to happen.

If you told SNAP recipients back in June, “We think in November you’re going to lose your benefits,” people could have made arrangements. It still would have been a huge challenge, but it’s the shock of this that I’m especially worried about in this context. So I’m not sure if this will lead to evictions, but at the same time, one of the key things this will lead to is families struggling to meet some of these other necessities.

[00:34:21]

DR. DIANE SCHANZENBACH: And maybe one additional set of thoughts is that I often think of food as the canary in the coal mine when it comes to families experiencing financial hardship. So many of their other bills, like rent, are fixed amounts, and you can’t negotiate with your landlord and say, “Hey, we’re going to not use the second bathroom this month. Can we have a reduction on our rent?” There’s just not that much slack that families have in their budget where they could pair back. And food is one of those, and so that’s why I think so many of us like to measure this, because it’s a first indicator. For this to spiral into an eviction crisis would take many more months, and hopefully we will not still be here talking about delays and lack of spending on SNAP months from now.

[00:39:56]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you, Dr. Gundersen, and I might ask a quick follow-up question to you. This is from Cincinnati Public TV. They’re asking, “You said SNAP is an outstanding success. What is the data showing that, and what are the limitations of that data?”

[00:40:10]

DR. CRAIG GUNDERSEN: Okay, we could have for the next 20 minutes discussion about this, and I don’t want to bore you with some of the econometric methods that are used to do this. But the general idea is, if I could be really, really brief, is that people do not randomly select themselves in to SNAP, is that persons with a higher risk of food insecurity, they may look similar to other households but they’re not, but these are the ones who enter into it. So once you control for that what’s called non-random selection into the program, and you also control for measurement error and reporting, and this has been done with many nationally representative data sets to look at this, once we control for all these different factors, is we find the SNAP recipients are about 20-30% less likely to be food-insecure than eligible non-recipients.

In terms of limitations, there’s always limitations with these analysis. You have to think about, are the methods, underlying methods convincing? Is the data what we would expect for this? I guess I would say is, there’s really a robust, robust literature on this, so I feel really confident saying that this is 20-30% less likely to be food-insecure than eligible non-participants. And there’s a nice paper on this by Christian Gregory and Travis Smith that talk about just this. But anyway, I have a lot of confidence in that result.

[00:41:24]

DR. LINDSEY HAYNES-MASLOW: May I add on just really briefly? I think just in addition to everything Craig mentioned, SNAP helps lift people out of poverty. Again, it reduces food insecurity. We know individuals, if they’re on SNAP and they know where the next meal is coming from, they’re less likely to be anxious and depressed. Again, we’ve talked about the impacts on children. We haven’t even talked about the economy here. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has their own report that shows that for every dollar invested in SNAP, one dollar and 50 cents goes back to the local economy. So we’re funding grocery stores, farmers markets, convenience stores. So I think the USDA is very interesting in this conversation as why we’re talking about money, is that this actually does contribute to the economy.

[00:42:09]

SARA WHITLOCK: And a great way to move along on the economy discussion is a question from WPLN Public Radio Nashville. They’re saying, “I talked with the Grocers Association here that said they’re concerned about supply chains and inventory when the delayed benefits eventually go out. Is there anything you’d recommend to states on mitigating this, or advice you’d give to SNAP recipients, who could face that once they do get benefits, not being able to access food supply chains?”

[00:42:36]

DR. DIANE SCHANZENBACH: That’s a really interesting and great question. So just for some context, in most places, different people get their SNAP benefits on different days of the month, and in some cases that’s spread out over a week, or some really over the whole month. And so as a result, grocery stores know that they can experience a steady stream of people with their refreshed SNAP benefits. So when this slowed down, and then they’re going to turn the spigot back on, there’s going to be a spike, at least presumably a spike, in the number of people demand or the amount of money being spent.

Grocery stores are pretty good at managing things like this. They’re good at managing around big paydays or Thanksgiving. I already see the grocery stores that they’re gearing up for that. To be sure, grocery stores will have to do some management around that, but I would bet that they will overcome that challenge. The grocery industry is really efficient and really effective, and they know how to manage their inventories.

[00:43:54]

SARA WHITLOCK: I’m sure they have a lot of expertise in this realm. Oh, Dr. Maslow?

[00:43:58]

DR. LINDSEY HAYNES-MASLOW: I wasn’t sure if the last part of the question was also asking about what SNAP recipients can do during this time. I know, again, probably their benefits have run out unless their state has come up with a solution, which multiple states have declared state of emergencies. They have funding that they’re able to use to fund the program on a weekly basis for a little bit. Unfortunately, I’m in a state that we don’t have our state budget. We cannot fund the program. But for individuals that are SNAP recipients, I would start recommending, as much as you can, be stocking up on non-perishable foods, canned goods, frozen items, making sure that you are trying to be prepared, because we just don’t know how long this will last and when benefits will return.

Because even that monetary part is, even if we are told that we have to give people their SNAP benefits, even the administration has admitted this, they don’t know how long that’s going to take to restart this process. So we could be talking about a few days, it could be a few weeks, and I get really concerned just looking at my calendar, which I see Thanksgiving is in a few weeks from now. Again, this is a huge time when our charitable food system is already overwhelmed. So I would say if you can, plan ahead as much as possible, recognizing that that’s a really hard ask.

[00:45:13]

SARA WHITLOCK: And, Dr. Haynes-Maslow, we have a question from WJCT Public Media in Jacksonville, which is also related to the holidays, so maybe you can expand a little bit. And their question is, “Is the timing of the lack of SNAP benefits potentially more devastating than other times of year? We’re a few weeks away from Thanksgiving. The holidays are on the horizon, and most places are starting to get cold.” So are there times of year where hunger or food insecurity rises and falls?

[00:45:36]

DR. LINDSEY HAYNES-MASLOW: Yeah. I think there’s always a little bit of seasonality when it comes to food in general. For someone who researches food access and also food intake, I actually try not to look at individuals around the holidays because we just eat differently. We might be eating more. We might be eating at different places. But I think the big thing to recognize, I think, is that individuals are probably going to see less food on their table during the holidays this year.

[00:46:06]

DR. CRAIG GUNDERSEN: Could I add one thing to that that I’ve been mentioning? Some people think about food just as nutrition, or food as healthy food, or things like this. Food means a lot to people. It’s something we enjoy, or at least I enjoy the food that I eat. I enjoy food. But another critical thing about food is, it brings us together. And so at Thanksgiving and then at Christmas, these are times that people come together, and these are really important times. And so therefore, I’m really concerned about this disruption coming at this time.

And it’s not so much not having the food. That’s an issue, but the other thing is just that it could disrupt these wonderful times that we get together with our families, and neighbors, and friends, in ways that will be disrupted. I’m concerned about that.

[00:46:54]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you, both. Thinking about the holidays more and moving into December, we have a question from Univision, which is, “The government is using all of SNAP’s contingency fund for November reduced payments. Is any other alternative permitted by law to fund the program, besides USDA funds, if the shutdown does extend into December?”

[00:47:15]

DR. DIANE SCHANZENBACH: While I’m not a lawyer, I do know what the lawyers are saying about this, and I turn here to my colleague at Georgetown, David Super, who has been arguing that there are other funds within the Department of Agriculture that could be tapped for this, in this kind of parallel manner, too. Remember, when the Department of Defense has paid military personnel, not from the normal funding source but moving around some other money, he argues that the USDA also has the authority to do that with SNAP, and if so we could fund it fully for several more months. I would refer you to him, or to other lawyers, but that is my understanding from the lawyers.

[00:48:06]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you for that. And as we think about things people might be enjoying during the holidays, we have a question from the Mississippi Free Press. “Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves has applied for a USDA waiver to ban Mississippians from using SNAP benefits to purchase sugary processed food and drinks, amid uncertainty looming over whether or not people will even get November SNAP benefits. How could this affect Mississippians on SNAP?” And maybe you can extend that to broader context about restricting the types of food people can access.

[00:48:35]

DR. CRAIG GUNDERSEN: So I can start on this, because one of the great things about SNAP, that I love about SNAP, is that it respects the dignity and the autonomy of individuals. It respects the dignity. I can shop along the same aisles as I did before I got SNAP and after I get SNAP, in the same ways that my friends, family, and neighbors can do so. It also respects the autonomy of recipients. It says to them, “We think you can make the best choices for the family.” We don’t want somebody else, I don’t need somebody else to tell a single mother with her children what she should be and should not be eating. My God, the presumption.

And so therefore, as you may guess, I’m vehemently against these restrictions on SNAP. It takes away the dignity and the autonomy of recipients by saying, “We’re going to have a bunch of people say what you can and can’t eat.” And it’s been kind of ironic – not ironic, but it’s an interesting thing, is that it used to be it was mainly blue states that were pushing for this, and a lot of public people in public health, the nutrition were saying, “We got to restrict what people eat.” And now it’s the MAHA movement that’s saying, “We got to restrict what people eat.”.

Both are wrong. Both sides are wrong on this, is that we really need to respect the dignity to autonomy. And also, part of the reason I’m so vehemently against this is, I’m not a slippery slope guy, but this is a slippery slope. If you’re going to start banning sugary sweetened beverages, might as well ban orange juice. Orange juice is about as healthy as some sugary sweetened beverages.

Or, candy. If you’re going to ban candy from being purchased, why not ban buying Clif bars? Why not ban granola bars? Why not ban cereal? You don’t want to go down this path. So instead, let us go back and respect the dignity and autonomy of our most vulnerable in our society, and avoid being patronizing, insulting, and mean to those who are most vulnerable in our society. It’s hard enough being poor, as Lindsey’s been telling all these stories today. It’s hard enough being poor in the United States, much less having somebody dictate what you can and can’t purchase. Sorry about that. This is something I feel strongly about.

[00:50:36]

DR. LINDSEY HAYNES-MASLOW: No, I will say I’ve never heard in an interview, “I really want to buy unhealthy food and feed it to kids.” It’s literally, “I’m buying what I can afford, what’s gonna last.” And also with carbonated beverages, I hope people remember this, people sometimes drink carbonated beverages to feel full, because they can’t eat food, because they can’t afford the food. So my 99 cent drink of soda, or pop, or coke, wherever you are in the country right now, just quote me whatever’s appropriate for your region, and how do you want to refer to sugary sweetened beverages. But this is not a problem of people not wanting healthy food. It’s about, are healthy foods affordable? And it’s not always non-perishable.

[00:51:18]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you, both. As we’re thinking about some of these more granular questions related to people’s diets, we have another question from the Washington Post about, “How could impacts to SNAP funding affect individuals who rely on the program for special diets due to health conditions?” So anyone who feels qualified to answer that can jump in.

[00:51:39]

DR. DIANE SCHANZENBACH: There are a number of studies that use variation in when SNAP benefits are loaded onto cards to look to see what happens to people with diet-related illnesses near the end of that SNAP month, when their money has run out. Those studies seem to show that they’re more likely to have problems with their health, they’re more likely to have to go to the emergency department, etc. So because we know that from normal times, that even then, by the end of the month, many people are looking at a spike in nutrition-related illnesses, I think all we could do is then draw the line, and then I think we would expect to see more of that, potentially more acute. We’ll just have to see, but there’s good evidence from a couple of different papers that indicate that that’s sort of the normal relationship.

[00:52:46]

DR. LINDSEY HAYNES-MASLOW: Yeah. The U.S. public and our taxpayers, we’re going to pay for this either now or we’re going to pay for it later. We can invest in food and prevention, or we can pay for it later in the most expensive way to access our healthcare system in this country, which is going to the ER. Again, if you go to the ER, you have to be seen, you have to be covered. And again, those are taxpayer dollars that are covering our publicly funded insurance program. So I always feel like we have to make that economic argument as well. It’s bad enough that there are poor health outcomes that are related to this, but now when you tie it to money and the economy, I just hope that makes that even a more complex and bigger issue that people start paying attention to.

[00:53:25]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you. And we have a couple related questions, but I’m going to start with this one from the USA Today Network in Tennessee, which is, “What long-term implications do you think will exist because of this SNAP lapse, in terms of personal health, food insecurity, or policy? Will we still see the impact of the SNAP flux in six months, a year or longer?”

[00:53:46]

DR. CRAIG GUNDERSEN: Under the assumption that SNAP benefits come back this month in a way, even at 50-65% and all of a sudden, my understanding, and Diane should correct me if I’m wrong on this, is that if the money is restored, people would get the money back on their accounts. But I’m not sure if that’s the case. In other words, they miss it this month but we’ll put it on for next. If this goes on for one month, I hope it’s clear to everybody that I think it’s bad, but I don’t think we would see long-term implications from a one-month decline in SNAP benefits.

If you think about the total amount of money that people have over the course of the year to spend and things like this, yes, I’m very concerned about this. Yes, I love SNAP. But no, if this only goes on for one month, I don’t think we’ll have long-term impacts. However, if this continues for months and if they don’t find funding in the way that Diane just talked about, I would be concerned if it went on for several more months, because it would just be for a lot of families, a pretty big decline in their amount of income that they have available.

[00:54:46]

DR. DIANE SCHANZENBACH: And if I can add to that, I’m glad we’re having this conversation about how important SNAP is, both to low-income families and to the broader economy right now, because the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as we’ve discussed before, really changes the eligibility for SNAP by really increasing the number of people subject to work requirements. And then even further down the road, if we get to the place that was passed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, that states have to contribute, 5%, 10% to the overall SNAP budget, I think we’ll see really big changes to SNAP.

And so, I’m glad we’re starting to have this conversation and people are digging in to understand what an important program this is, because other changes are going to come down the road, even if they resolve this current crisis tomorrow.

[00:55:46]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you. And a question from the Sacramento Bee, which says, “Recently, the federal government issued a warning to retailers that they cannot offer pricing preferences to SNAP participants under the equal treatment rule. Do any of you know if there have been enforcement actions before on businesses who offer special discounts to SNAP participants, and has there been enforcement of audits, sanctions or retailer warnings?” Does anyone know answers to that?

[00:56:10]

DR. LINDSEY HAYNES-MASLOW: I don’t have a specific answer for that, but I will say, the USDA does do random audits on stores that accept SNAP, and I think it’s really important too that people know, and reporters know, that if you get cited, or if you are not accepting SNAP in an appropriate way, your license is pulled and you’re out of that program. You can never be a retailer and you can’t be a SNAP provider again. That’s different than Medicare and Medicaid, where you just pay a large fee, pay it back to the federal government, and you keep continuing to accept it. So it is a program that is audited, so I think that’s something people should be aware of.

[00:56:48]

DR. CRAIG GUNDERSEN: Yeah. The thing about whenever things come up like this is, I hope reporters are coming back to us a year from now. I hope reporters are coming back to us. Same thing happened during COVID. There was a lot of interest in food insecurity and SNAP, and then there’s still some interest but not as much. There’s a lot of vulnerable Americans who are going to be at risk even after they get their SNAP benefits back, and so I think we continue to talk about this.

Just flagging back these restrictions on SNAP purchases, along with being mean and demeaning to those who are SNAP recipients, it’s going to be an administrative nightmare in terms of a lot of this, so building on what Lindsey said in some of these contexts in terms of audits and stuff. So that’s another concern that I have with those restrictions, coming back to something.

[00:57:29]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you so much. Now we have one more question, which will give our experts a chance to offer some brief takeaway messages. But first, I want to flag for reporters on the line that you’ll receive a quick email survey when you sign off of this briefing. And if you could take even 30 seconds to give us any feedback that you have, that would be really helpful to us to plan our services and give you what you need for your reporting. So our final question, in about 30 seconds, what is one key take-home message for reporters covering this topic? So I’ll start with you, Dr. Schanzenbach.

[00:57:56]

DR. DIANE SCHANZENBACH: I think it really is the importance of SNAP to people and to the economy. Currently, it’s an efficient and it’s an effective program, and helps many families put food on the table.

[00:58:10]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you so much. And, Dr. Gundersen?

[00:58:13]

DR. CRAIG GUNDERSEN: SNAP is amazing. I love SNAP. We need to preserve SNAP as a critical component of the social safety net against hunger. The one thing I will tell reporters though, is to begin thinking a lot about who is most vulnerable, both in the current situation, but more broadly. And I really would encourage people to think a lot more about those with mental health challenges, those suffering from loneliness, those suffering from addictions, and those who were recently incarcerated. I think we really need to think about those, our brothers and sisters who are most vulnerable among us, and that’s what I’d encourage reporters to think about currently, but also, come back to all of us 12 months, two years from now, and talk about this again.

[00:58:50]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you. Dr. Haynes-Maslow?

[00:58:52]

DR. LINDSEY HAYNES-MASLOW: SNAP works. There’s evidence to show this. It’s backed up by decades of research, and I think at the end of the day, we all need to remember that federal policy gets really personal when it starts hitting our own finances. So I think at least we’re raising awareness about the importance of SNAP, and what it does for how to help out families, and how it contributes to our economy.

[00:59:14]

SARA WHITLOCK: Thank you all so much for these useful insights into the research side of this topic, especially as we’ve all talked about, so many Americans are unable to access their SNAP benefits. And for all of us at SciLine, thanks to all the journalists who logged on to gather context and ideas for your coverage, and I hope that we’ll see you at our next briefing. Thank you.