RIDGE conference on nutrition assistance research October 14

The 2020 Tufts/UConn Research Innovation and Development Grants in Economics (RIDGE) Conference, held virtually on October 14, will feature new economic research aimed at enhancing food security and dietary quality for low-income Americans.

New and established investigators who were 2019 RIDGE grantees will present on topics ranging from evaluating the impact of nutrition-driven changes in school meals to influences of labor policy on SNAP to nutrition assistance participation amongst populations of interests, including college students and multigenerational households.

The conference is free but requires advanced registration.

RIDGE is a USDA-supported collaboration between the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at the University of Connecticut and my research team at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. Completed studies from an earlier round of grants have addressed many important research questions in nutrition assistance research, including these:

• Dr. Erica Kenney (.pdf) on changes to nutrition standards in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP),
• Drs. Rebecca Franckle and Eric Rimm (.pdf) on the frequency of benefit delivery in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and
• Drs. Michah W. Rothbart and Amy Ellen Schwartz (.pdf) on universal eligibility for federal school meals programs.

Seeking grant proposals for research on USDA nutrition assistance programs

The Tufts/UConn RIDGE Program seeks to support innovative economic research on domestic nutrition assistance programs and to broaden a network of researchers applying their expertise to USDA topics. The RIDGE Program seeks applications from a diverse community of experienced nutrition assistance researchers, graduate students, early career scholars, and established researchers who bring expertise in another research area.

Full details are available in the 2019 Request for Proposals (RFP). Additional information will be provided during the RIDGE Informational Webinar for Applicants, Monday, December 17, 2018 at 12PM EST. 

Important Dates for the 2019 Submission Cycle

Request for proposals release:                       November 28, 2018
Informational webinar for applicants:              December 17, 2018 12PM EST
Concept paper due:                                        January 25, 2019
Full proposal (by invitation) due:                     March 29, 2019
Funding period (up to 18 months):                 June 1, 2019 – November 30, 2020

For additional questions, contact ridge@tufts.edu.

A more constructive approach to SSB restrictions in SNAP

An old debate

First, let me review the harsh back and forth in a somewhat typical week of debate about sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs) in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

The New York Times this week published an article about "lots of soda" in the shopping carts of SNAP participants.

This drew fire from the magazine Jacobin ("Reason in Revolt"), where Joe Soss noted several problems with the NYT article. For example, the NYT listed "milk" first among beverage choices for nonparticipant households, but the original USDA study (.pdf) showed no significant difference in the ranking of food choices for participants and nonparticipants.

The NYT reporter, Anahad O'Connor, said "cities, states, and medical groups" have urged changes to SNAP, such as restricting soda purchases. Meanwhile, O'Connor said, industry organizations have spent millions opposing the changes, so USDA has refused to approve the proposals.

One would think from the NYT article that all the good folks favor the restrictions, and all the bad folks oppose. O'Connor didn't say that the list of supporters for such proposals also includes conservative critics of SNAP, who sometimes include such proposals in an agenda that also has budget cuts, nor that the list of opponents includes anti-hunger organizations, who are concerned that the proposals would increase program stigma and food insecurity by discouraging participation among eligible people.

In truth, people who care about poverty, hunger, and health are painfully divided about SNAP restrictions.

A more promising discussion

Second, let's consider a different approach to this policy discussion.

I have a wish that leading anti-hunger organizations would more sympathetically consider supporting a pilot project that includes SNAP restrictions.

Here is a draft set of principles, which, if met, might make such a proposal deserving of support by anti-hunger organizations, legislators who care about food security, and the USDA.

1. the policy to be piloted places a high value on both nutrition and food security, combining a policy of interest for public health nutrition goals (the SSB restriction) with policies of interest for food security goals (such as enhanced benefits for some participants who currently receive too little);
2. the pilot is a true pilot (pilot scale, with genuine empirical curiosity about the outcome, and no assumptions in advance that the outcome will be favorable);
3. the outcomes for the study include reduced SSB consumption (intended outcome) and questions about perceived stigma and SNAP participation (possible unintended outcomes);
4. the pilot policy does not have other food choice restrictions beyond the SSB restriction (no hints at more broadly paternalistic plans to convert SNAP into WIC); and
5. the research protocol has a trigger, enforced by the Institutional Review Board (IRB), ending the pilot in the event of any evidence that the pilot proposal threatens household food security.

I wish such a pilot SSB restriction were not caught up in our poisoned partisan struggle over the safety net more broadly. This is merely a small reasonable revision of the definition of SNAP eligible foods to exclude soda. It is not about "banning" soda, just about altering what can be purchased with SNAP benefits. If the proposed policy turns out to threaten food security, almost everybody in the public health nutrition community would drop their interest in it. And, if the proposal turns out to be successful, and perhaps even popular with SNAP participants themselves -- who may appreciate the health halo associated with the revised program -- then it may merit support within the anti-hunger advocacy community.

Update (Jan 19): A clear and empathetic essay from Marlene Schwartz at the Rudd Center published yesterday in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Moving Beyond the Debate Over Restricting Sugary Drinks in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program - https://t.co/izCyyf4w7n

— Rudd Center (@UConnRuddCenter) January 18, 2017

Sharing store-level SNAP redemptions data

USDA's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) has requested public comment on the question: Should store-level redemptions data for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) be shared with the public?

This blog has long encouraged making public such information, which is useful to low-income communities seeking to improve access to healthy food.

In 2010, I covered the efforts of the MuckRock website to make public similar information. More recently, the Argus Leader pressed USDA to release store-level SNAP redemptions data. Tracie McMillan summarized the controversy in an article for the Food and Environment Reporting Network (FERN) and Mother Jones in April.

The public comment period is open through today. Act now if you would like your voice heard. Here is an excerpt from my comment, submitted just now.

Thank you for requesting public comment on the question: should USDA/FNS release store-level redemptions data for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)?

The answer is “yes.”

This public information is useful

SNAP represents an increasingly large fraction of the U.S. food retail economy, now accounting for more than 10% of all food retail sales (Wilde, 2012). SNAP is the nation’s most important anti-hunger program, of course, and in recent years the program also has become a critical and central part of the food retail economy overall. To administer this responsibility transparently, in circumstances such as this one where information release is legal and ethical, USDA/FNS should make the information available.

With growing public interest in encouraging access to sufficient healthy food retail in low-income communities, these communities require good information about store-level SNAP redemptions. In a newsmagazine article this year by Tracie McMillan, James Johnson Piett explained the need: “We’re working kind of blind when it comes to empirical data” (McMillan, 2014).

It is legal and ethical to make this information public

The most important point is that SNAP redemptions data are not private confidential business information.

Section 9(c) of 7 U.S.C. 2018(c) prevents USDA/FNS from sharing information that is “received from applicant and participating SNAP retailers.” Similarly, Exemption 4 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) allows FNS to hold back “trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential.” In both cases the confidential information is obtained by the government from a private party or firm.

Store-level SNAP redemptions data are not private information acquired from a private party or firm in this manner. The redemptions data show what is being paid out by USDA/FNS and the federal government, on behalf of the American taxpayers, who have committed great resources at large expense to this important public purpose. Public expenditures in contracts with businesses that provide goods and services are usually rightly public information. Think about subsidies to farmers, or the value of military contracts to arms manufacturers, or municipal expenditures on roads, all of which are public information. No roads contactor can say, “please keep the amount of this contract private, because that is valuable confidential business information.”

In the comments to FNS that have already been posted to the Federal Register docket, many retailers have expressed concern over the release of their private business information. It is good for FNS to reassure them that private information they have provided will not be released. But -- despite the repetition in the submitted comments -- the basic store-level redemptions data are not private confidential information of this type. These redemptions data should be shared.

In the comments from retailers on the Federal Register docket, retailers express concern about the feared difficulty and cost of new data collection mechanisms to provide these data. These fears are unfounded. If there were any new data collection cost or difficulty, FNS would be entirely correct to decline to collect or release these data. FOIA is about public release of existing data that FNS already collects. Certainly, the state SNAP agencies that administer the program already know the redemption amounts.

New edition of Breadlines Knee-Deep in Wheat by Janet Poppendieck

Breadlines Knee-Deep in Wheat is a classic in the history of U.S. food policy, written by sociologist  Janet Poppendieck, focused on the connections between agricultural crisis and food programs for the poor in the Great Depression.

The new edition from the University of California Press, published this month, includes a foreword by Marion Nestle and a delightful new epilogue bringing the story up to date from the book's original publication in the 1980s to the present. And by "the present," I mean the book includes material as recent as the key January 2014 compromise over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provisions new Farm Bill. (In terms of the publishing mechanics, how is this even possible?).

I read the new manuscript last year at the request of the publisher (and recommended republication):

The book is well-written and detailed, making bureaucratic correspondence come alive as lively argument. It has an authoritative and believable voice, while still carrying passion for the plight of the poor and hungry. I knew this already from reading Poppendieck’s more recent books on the emergency food system and on school meals reform. The pig slaughter story will stick in my head permanently now. The use of archival material adds novelty, but the book serves well even digesting and interpreting known topics.

Immediately today I will add this book to my U.S. food policy syllabus and place an order request to my university library.

Farm Bill conference proposes cutting $800 million per year in SNAP benefits

The Farm Bill conference committee report, released today, includes $800 million per year in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the nation's largest anti-hunger program.

The conference report likely puts to rest several years of debate between the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, which sought much steeper cuts, and the Democratic-controlled Senate, which sought less severe cuts. Both houses of Congress are likely to pass the compromise in the conference committee report this week.

The compromise is a disappointment to anti-hunger advocates. Program participants already in November faced the end of a temporary boost to program benefits. These new cuts are in addition to that change in November.

Yet, in a sense, the cuts proposed today were inevitable, and about as mild as program supporters could expect.

The actual mechanism for most of the cuts is a change to how utility costs are counted when benefits are calculated. Certain utility costs count as "excess shelter expenses," which are deducted from gross income during the computation of net income. SNAP benefits are based on net income (those with higher net income get smaller benefits), so eliminating a certain type of utility cost deduction amounts in practice to the same thing as a benefit cut.

Bob Greenstein at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a leading public interest voice on nutrition assistance policy, this evening explained why this change to the utility cost computation was difficult to oppose:

The SNAP cut ... is a provision to tighten an element of the SNAP benefit calculation that some states have converted into what most people would view as a loophole. Specifically, some states are stretching the benefit formula in a way that enables them not only to simplify paperwork for many SNAP households, but also to boost SNAP benefits for some SNAP households by assuming those households pay several hundred dollars a month in utility costs that they do not actually incur. Congress did not intend for states to stretch the benefit rules this way, and longstanding SNAP supporters like myself find it difficult to defend. Moreover, a future Administration could close off this use of the rules administratively, without any congressional action.

If I were king, the social safety net would be more generous. Our society would be a better society if we treated the poor and hungry as brothers and sisters. Who among us, in speaking of a poor or hungry brother or sister, would hesitate to provide resources before offering unsolicited advice? In several ways, I would make the social safety net more respectful of the dignity of its participants.

But I am not king. I am proud instead to live in our semi-functioning democracy. This Farm Bill compromise on nutrition assistance is about as good as I expected from the current Congress. The burden lies with program supporters first to persuade more voters of the value of these programs and then second to press for more generous program benefits.

USDA Under Secretary Kevin Concannon speaks at the Friedman School

Kevin W. Concannon, USDA Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services spoke this month at the Friedman School's weekly Wednesday seminar.  He gave a broad overview of USDA's nutrition assistance programs and nutrition education initiatives.

Kevin W. Concannon has served as President Obama's and Secretary Vilsack's Under Secretary for FNS since July 2009.

He oversees the U.S. Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) which serves 1 in 4 Americans, and has lead responsibilities for promoting healthful diet through the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion.

Working in partnership with State and local organizations, FNS oversees the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the Food Stamp Program; child nutrition programs including National School Lunch, School Breakfast, and Summer Food Service Programs; The Child and Adult Care Food Program; the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); the Commodity Supplemental Food Program; Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations; The Emergency Food Assistance Program; and other nutrition programs.

A video of the presentation and discussion is available from iTunes.

Food stamp challenge (with abundant talent)

In my presentation at Virginia Tech last month, I mentioned the food stamp challenge, a short-term exercise in living on the food budget available to a very low-income participant in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

One of the students there began the challenge and documented it on a blog, posting food photography and receipts.  Although some people attempt a food stamp challenge using average benefits as the spending benchmark, I think Clara was correct to use the maximum SNAP benefit as a benchmark (this is the benefit amount received by the lowest-income program participants).

Of course, few of us have the talent to make a food stamp challenge look so good.  Please do not use Clara's blog posts for the purpose of redesigning federal food stamp policy!  Instead, just consider Clara's experience as one example of the diversity of experiences that people have with the economics of food spending, preparation, and ... clearly ... enjoyment.

South Carolina explores restriction on SNAP purchases of sugar-sweetened beverages

Economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach recently argued in the Christian Science Monitor against proposals to disallow purchases of sugar-sweetened beverages using SNAP benefits.

Without question, the advocates for a policy to ban the purchase of sugar-sweetened beverages using SNAP benefits have the best of intentions. But policymakers need to be careful not to let their zeal for combating obesity push them into hastily adopting policies that at best are unlikely to help fight obesity, and, at worst, can do substantial damage to the safety net.

New York City had proposed such a policy some time ago, and South Carolina was reported more recently to be considering a pilot study.  As with the SNAP policy suggestion discussed in yesterday's post, a pilot study is important, because there are serious concerns that SNAP spending restrictions could increase stigma and discourage participation by eligible potential participants.

Perhaps, a pilot study would show increased perceptions of stigma, reduced participation, and even hunger and food insecurity as a consequence of the sugar-sweetened beverage limitation.  At the same time, it is quite possible that the pilot policy would strengthen the healthy identity of SNAP benefits and reduce stigma.  The policy may be popular with low-income parents, who must manage the intense marketing environment for unhealthy beverages just as middle-income parents must.  As a practical matter, any proponents of such a pilot study should take seriously the concerns that the anti-hunger community has expressed about such policies.  As in yesterday's post, I think the views and experiences of SNAP participants should be most influential in this policy decision.

Food stamp cycle in the Washington Post

The Washington Post this weekend published a long and thoughtful feature by Eli Saslow titled: Food Stamps put Rhode Island town on monthly boom-and-bust cycle.

At precisely one second after midnight, on March 1, Woonsocket would experience its monthly financial windfall — nearly $2 million from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. Federal money would be electronically transferred to the broke residents of a nearly bankrupt town, where it would flow first into grocery stores and then on to food companies, employees and banks, beginning the monthly cycle that has helped Woonsocket survive.

For research background, my dissertation in the late 1990s and the resulting article with Christine Ranney in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics provided the first nationally representative estimates of the monthly cycle in food spending and food use for food stamp program participants.  My 2002 article with Margaret Andrews in the Journal of Consumer Affairs used Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) data to get an even sharper view of the exact timing of food stamp and cash transactions over the course of the month.  In 2005, Jesse Shapiro provided more economic insight in the Journal of Public Economics.  In a 2012 article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Harvard researchers Cindy Leung, Walter Willett, and Eric Ding recommended further research on whether the monthly SNAP cycle could be related to risk of overweight.

One policy-relevant question is whether the federal government should ever consider providing benefits twice monthly.  Michigan considered such a policy in 2008, but I think it never came to pass.

One objection I have heard is that twice-monthly benefit delivery is paternalistic and might force low-income SNAP to conduct a potentially burdensome shopping trip.  This argument seems incorrect to me.  Let me lay out the case in an orderly fashion.

Whether benefits are delivered once or twice monthly, SNAP participants can freely choose whether to shop once or twice monthly.

• If benefits are delivered to the EBT card once monthly, then a SNAP participant who wanted to shop once monthly is perfectly satisfied, but a SNAP participant who wanted to shop twice monthly and smooth consumption over the course of the month must save half the benefits for use two weeks later.
• If benefits are delivered to the EBT card twice monthly, then a SNAP participant who wanted to shop once monthly must save half the benefits for use two weeks later, but a SNAP participant who wanted to shop twice monthly and smooth consumption over the course of the month is perfectly satisfied.

The key point is that the two policies are exactly equally paternalistic.  When middle-income speakers say that twice monthly benefit delivery is paternalistic, they implicitly assume that it is most natural for low-income people to shop once monthly and go hungry later -- a shopping pattern that the middle-income speakers would never use themselves.  I think it is the middle-income speaker's implicit assumption that really is paternalistic.

Any policy such as twice-monthly benefit delivery should be pilot tested.  The pilot should explicitly ask SNAP participants whether they had any shopping difficulties or budget difficulties, and whether they liked the new policy better than the old one.  It is possible that the new policy will reduce the occurrence of episodes of food insecurity at the end of the month.  The current policy should not be preferred based on implicit assumptions. SNAP participants deserve an influential voice in this decision.

Sound Medicine: How does farm policy affect the nation's nutrition and health?

I recently spoke with Barbara Lewis at the Indiana NPR program Sound Medicine about the Farm Bill and nutrition.  The program website has full audio.  Here is the abstract from the program.

A large piece of legislation known as the Farm Bill has been stalled on the House floor because of budgetary concerns. The Farm Bill addresses issues such as rising milk prices, nutrition assistance programs for the poor and agriculture subsidies. Without the passage of this legislation, the farming industry has been reverting to outdated policy. Parke Wilde, Ph.D., discusses policy changes that would have a positive impact on the nation and how components of the Farm Bill would effect change. Dr. Wilde is an associate professor in the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and the author of the upcoming book, “Food Policy in the United States: An Introduction.”

Joel Berg: Good Food, Good Jobs

In a new report from the Progressive Policy Institute, Joel Berg can be tough on writers who are naive about food policy.

For example, Berg quotes Marlene Kennedy, who suggested in the Albany Times-Union in 2008 that SNAP (food stamp) participants take up gardening:

Rather than working hard to increase participation in food and nutrition assistance programs, why not try to reduce the need for such aid? Instead of spreading the word about food stamps to the urban poor, why not give them a way to grow their own food?

Berg responds with a tart call to realism:

The idea that people should work in a community garden instead of getting food stamps is simply preposterous. SNAP is a vital safety-net program that makes a real difference in the lives of millions of Americans, providing mass sustenance in a way community gardens still have yet to achieve.... Saying that seasonal gardens can take the place of a year-round government safety net is ridiculous and counterproductive.

On the other hand, Berg can also be rough on writers who are too narrowly realistic.

For example, many community food programs start small, but Berg disagrees with those who sneer at the small initial scale of such programs.

[J]ust as I rebuke food security theorists for glossing over the class-insensitive aspects of the movement, I must also chide my colleagues in traditional hunger organizations for too frequently looking down their noses at the community food security movement just because most of the projects are still small-scale. If anti-hunger advocates agree that such projects are helpful but believe their scale is too small to make a meaningful difference, the most logical response should be to work together to develop public policies to help them expand.

So, using Berg's perspective, in which it is possible to be too naive, too realistic, or just right, I invite comments on the balance struck in several of the proposals in Berg's report.

A. A new $1 billion tax credit.

The president and Congress should authorize $1 billion in new, special tax credits for food-related businesses, contingent on their paying living-wage salaries to their employees, locating or staying in areas of particularly high unemployment, or providing affordable food to low-income Americans.

B. The bully pulpit.

The president should use his “bully pulpit” to encourage private investments in food-related social innovation projects.

C. A food access index.

USDA should develop a “food access index,” a new measure that takes into account both the availability and affordability of nutritious foods, and use this measure as another tool to judge the success of all the efforts it funds.

D. $50 million in community food grants.

The president and Congress should increase the funding for the USDA Community Food Grant Program to $50 million, from its current $5 million level.

Berg directs the New York City Coalition Against Hunger and is author of All You Can Eat: How Hungry Is America?

Food Stamp Program (SNAP) serves record numbers

The federal government's most important anti-hunger program provided food assistance to record numbers of low-income Americans in June.

For the first time ever, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, served more than 35 million people in June, according to the most recent monthly data from USDA's Food and Nutrition Service.

The program supports a monthly budget for food from grocery stores (not counting restaurants) of $668 in a family of four (or $167 per person). Very poor households receive this full food budget from the SNAP program, while low-income households that are a little better off are expected to contribute a portion of their own cash income to their food budget.

(An interesting "food stamp challenge" or "SNAP challenge" is to try to live for a week on a food budget of $38, as a way of learning about food conditions for low-income Americans).

Following a substantial benefit increase in April (.pdf), which was part of the federal stimulus package, the average per person monthly benefit was $133 in June, compared with $101 a year earlier. This raised the federal cost for benefits to $4.7 billion in June, compared with $2.9 billion a year earlier.

The cost of the SNAP program responds automatically to economic conditions (.pdf), expanding during recessions and contracting during good times. A major research challenge over the years has been to understand exactly how strongly the SNAP caseload responds to economic conditions and policy changes.

Here is a Google gadget showing the time series for the SNAP / Food Stamp caseload over the years.

Here is a second gadget showing, for each state, how the SNAP caseload responds to the unemployment rate and other economic and policy variables. The size of the bubble is proportional to the state population. When the unemployment rate rises, the bubble moves rightward. When the proportion of the population receiving SNAP benefits rises, the bubble moves upwards. The color changes show the date of implementation for important welfare reforms during the 1990s.

One cool thing to do with the second gadget is to click on a particular state, to see how its experience is similar to or different from other states. For example, if you select Louisiana (near the top on the left in the opening setting), you can see the dramatic effect of Hurricane Katrina on food stamp / SNAP participation.

Another cool thing to do is to notice the effect of economic conditions on food stamp /SNAP participation. The whole cloud of bubbles drifts upward and rightward during recessions, and downward and leftward during economic expansions. But there are interesting exceptions. During parts of the current decade, there was economic expansion but food stamp / SNAP participation kept rising.

Graduate students Joseph Llobrera and Hanqi Luo helped with the gadgets. Feel free to comment on interesting things you notice in these data.

SNAP benefits and food spending in stores and restaurants

Food benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) expand household grocery spending for low-income families. This seems obvious, because the nation's largest food assistance program, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, provides targeted food benefits that legally may only be spent at authorized retailers such as grocery stores.

But, what is the effect of SNAP benefits on food spending at restaurants? This is less obvious, because the food benefits may not be spent in restaurants. Benefits could increase restaurant spending by increasing total resources, or the benefits could suppress restaurant spending by substituting grocery food for restaurant food.

In a recent study in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics (AJAE), my colleagues Bea Rogers, Lisa Troy, and I estimated "Engel functions," which show how food spending responds to increased total household resources for food stamp participants and non-participants.

The most interesting finding is that food stamps appear to raise food spending on groceries ("at home" food spending), while perhaps suppressing food spending in restaurants ("away from home" food spending).

This graph shows "at home" food spending (on the vertical axis) as a function of total income including food stamps plus cash income (on the horizontal axis), for single-parent households. Food stamp participants (the shorter line) have greater at home food spending than non-participants (the longer line), even holding constant total income. The upward slope of each line shows how food spending increases as total income rises.

The next graph, by contrast, shows that away from home (restaurant) food spending is lower for participants than for seemingly similar non-participants.

This pattern may have nutritional implications, because past research has shown that restaurant foods contain on average comparatively more of the nutrients (such as salt and saturated fat) that Americans are advised to consume less frequently or in smaller quantities.

Related research, including similar results for household food security outcomes, is available in a report from USDA's Economic Research Service.

11.1% of U.S. households were food insecure in 2007

The U.S. Department of Agriculture this week estimated that 11.1% of U.S. households were food insecure at some point in 2007. In a 30-day period, 6.3% of households were food insecure.

USDA estimated that 4.1% of U.S. households experienced "very low food security" at some point in 2007. USDA used to call such housheolds "food insecure with hunger." A simpler single survey question showed that 3.3% of respondents reported being "hungry" at some point in the previous 12 months, because of not being able to afford food.

The estimates were based on a set of questions about symptoms of food hardship on the Current Population Survey in December, 2007. Anti-hunger groups noted that the new USDA estimates do not capture likely recent increases in poverty and hunger due to the financial crisis.

To put the statistics in context, the United States will fail to achieve national targets for reductions in food insecurity.

Household food insecurity, 1995-2007

Data source: USDA. Graphic: Parke Wilde.

As part of the department's criteria for evaluating food assistance programs, USDA strategic plans set targets for 2005 and 2007 in the rate of "very low food security" among households with incomes below 130% of poverty. In a 2004 paper (.pdf) for the Center for National Statistics at the National Academies, I discussed some ways these evaluation targets might or might not work as intended. After establishing these targets, USDA has not followed up and reported progress toward meeting them, and is considering changes to its evaluation approach in light of the CNSTAT report on food security measurement.

One complication is that the prevalence of "very low food security" is much worse for households that participate in the Food Stamp Program (now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP), than among low-income nonparticipants, presumably because people who face greater hardship are more likely to participate. The detailed tables of the USDA report this week show, furthermore, that the prevalence of "very low food security" among participants actually appears to be increasing over time.

At the very least, this trend makes it difficult to use such data to demonstrate the beneficial effect of SNAP in reducing food insecurity and hunger. I have been using every opportunity to encourage USDA to pilot and evaluate possible program changes, such as twice-monthly benefit delivery, which might increase the effect of SNAP on measured rates of household food insecurity by reducing the episodes of hardship toward the end of the month.

Data source: USDA. Graphic: Parke Wilde.

The diversity of state experiences with food stamp caseload dynamics

I will be in Los Angeles later this week, to give a paper on the Thrifty Food Plan research at one Saturday session of the annual meeting of the Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM).

While there, I hope to see first hand some of the food retail hardships in the car-centered city, which have been getting a lot of coverage lately. See, for example, the report "Shopping for a Market" about new food retail entry (by researchers at Occidental), and the report "Designed for Disease" linking food retail to health conditions (by researchers at UCLA). Send any suggestions for places to visit or good food movement people to meet.

Meanwhile, I will be moderating another Saturday session, about how state-level differences in economic conditions and food stamp policies are related to differences in food security, hunger, and other outcomes. Nader Kabbani and I did a study a few years ago, investigating the importance of state-level variations in food stamp policies -- such as the length of the certification period for proving continued eligibility -- which turn out to be surprisingly influential in the Food Stamp Program, despite the program's reputation as a last bastion of national level rules in a sea of federalism.

Here is a fun illustration of the data from Nader's and my study. The basic static pattern in the opening picture is that states with higher unemployment tend to have higher food stamp participation. Hit play to see the dynamics of food stamp caseloads over the course of the 1990s, during a period just before (blue) and after (red) the adoption of welfare reforms. By clicking, you can select particular states to follow over time. Or, by selecting different variables from the triangle symbols, you can look at different variables, such as the certification periods discussed above.

Food stamp benefits when inflation is high

The benefit level in the Food Stamp Program -- now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) -- is updated every year for food price inflation. The update occurs in October based on the Consumer Price Index in June. It is somewhat in the eye of the beholder whether to think of benefits as lagging by 4 months (counting from the start of the year) or 10 months (the average for the year) or being "15 months out of date by the end" of the year (with italics for emphasis). The lag in the benefit update does raise greater concern in the last couple years, because food price inflation has been higher recently. Here is a revised report on the topic by Dottie Rosenbaum at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.


A somewhat offsetting consideration is that the Thrifty Food Plan has been increasing in recent years at a rate higher than the overall food price inflation measured in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). This has the effect of raising the food stamp benefit faster than the overall rate of food price inflation. Mark Lino at USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion said the reason for this pattern in 2004-2005 (.pdf) was because the Thrifty Food Plan is weighted more heavily toward fruits and vegetables, milk, and lean meats, which experienced faster price increases. I imagine similar trends have continued more recently.