Spacing Out SNAP Benefits Distribution

By Elizabeth Tansing, Director of State Government Relations, Food Marketing Institute 

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly the food stamp program, provides approximately 46 million low income Americans with money to purchase food. It is the largest food assistance program in the United States.

SNAP benefits are a key plank in the economic livelihood of these Americans. The Urban Institute estimates that receiving SNAP benefits reduces the likelihood of being food insecure by roughly 30 percent and reduces the likelihood of being very food insecure by 20 percent. Its effect on low income families with children is even more striking. A study by the National Poverty Center found that the program “reduces the number of extremely poor households with children by half.”

As the point of redemption for SNAP beneficiaries, food retailers play a critical front-line role in ensuring the program functions efficiently. A major impediment to this efficiency is non-staggered state distribution of SNAP benefits.

Currently, eight states issue SNAP benefits on only one day, and others, on just three days. This limited distribution creates a bottleneck for SNAP recipients and customers, as grocery lines become frustratingly long on that one day. Retailers can have stocking issues and labor concerns as well. As shelves are depleted after only one shopping day, re-stocking can be challenging, and often it is difficult to keep labor for only a day or two surrounding that one busy day of the month.

For these reasons, FMI supports expanded distribution of SNAP benefits throughout the month – not just on a handful of days. Indeed, USDA agrees with this conclusion, stating that issuing SNAP benefits over a limited number of days “puts an unnecessary strain on SNAP clients and on participating retailers by causing surges in customer traffic.”