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overview
The U.S. Food Stamp Program (FSP) is the Nation's largest nutrition
program for low-income Americans and a source of demand for the products
of American farmers and food industries. The program provides benefits with electronic debit cards, which participants may use to buy food from eligible retailers. The program served about
21.3 million low-income Americans on average each month in fiscal 2003, with an
USDA outlay of about $23.9 billion. The Food
Assistance and Nutrition Research Program at ERS studies the Food
Stamp Program and other nutrition programs, including WIC
and the child nutrition programs,
program outcomes, vulnerable
populations, the relationship between food
assistance programs and the general economy, program
operations and integrity, and food
security in the United States.
features
 Food Stamp Nutrition Education (FSNE)—The primary goal of Food Stamp Nutrition Education (FSNE) is to improve the ability of food stamp participants to make healthy food choices and choose active lifestyles consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Food Guide Pyramid. USDA's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) began providing funding for FSNE in the early 1990s by matching the dollars a State spends on FSNE activities. This section of the briefing room describes FSNE research activities, provides links to State-level maps and data, and posts tools to assist in assessing the impact of FSNE.
 Food
Stamp Program Map Machine—The Food Stamp Program (FSP) Map Machine
is an interactive web-based mapping utility that illustrates program participation
and benefit levels down to the county level. Use the map machine to show
per capita participation, per capita benefits, changes from year to year,
and more. The map's tools allow you to call up tabular data for the county,
State, or Nation. For example, select a State, zoom into a specific county,
and display the data for that county by using the identify tool. Or, zoom
into a region of the United States and display a map showing how rapidly
program participation changed in each county between 1993 and 1997.
 Food
Stamp Research Discussion Group—The Food Stamp Research discussion
group (FSP-research) is a communication tool for individuals who conduct
or use research and policy analysis related to the U.S. Food Stamp Program.
This collaborative effort between ERS and USDA's Food and Nutrition Information
Center (FNIC) provides an electronic forum for publication announcements
and for discussion of food stamp data and research methods. Find out more
about the electronic
discussion group, subscribe,
or view the archives
on the FNIC web site.
 The Food Stamp Program provisions of the Nutrition Programs Title in the 2002 Farm Act reauthorize the program for 5 years. The Act reinstates eligibility for many legal immigrants, increases benefits by raising the standard deduction for many large families, and offers transitional food stamp benefits for families leaving welfare. The Act also contains several new provisions for Food Stamp Program simplification and administrative reforms.
The
Food Assistance Landscape—This twice-yearly publication provides
a brief overview of USDA's domestic food assistance programs. Each issue
contains recent program statistics, such as expenditure, participation,
and benefit levels, as well as information on related economic and social
indicators, such as unemployment rates, income growth, and food price
inflation. Issues also discusses recent ERS research related to food assistance.
recommended
readings
Prototype Notebook: Short Questions on Dietary Intake, Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behaviors—Assessing the impact of Food Stamp Nutrition Education (FSNE) on the dietary behavior of Food Stamp Program participants is a complex task. Because dietary quality is multifaceted, researchers are challenged to develop measures that assess targeted behaviors, and are suitable for use with program participants. This report provides a compendium of 128 survey questions used in previous research to assess dietary knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors for low-income populations over the age of 18. Each question is presented using a common template including the citations, data sources, data characteristics, and availability of comparable data.
 White Papers on Food Stamp
Nutrition Education (FSNE) Evaluation—ERS and the Food and Nutrition
Service (FNS) sponsored this set of papers to support evaluation of nutrition
education provided through FSNE activities. Published in the Journal
of Nutrition Education, the papers identify tools to assess nutrition
education needs of low-income families and evaluate outcomes of nutrition
education programs directed toward this audience.
Food Stamp Benefits and Childhood Poverty
in the 1990s—In 2000, 8.8 million children received food stamps,
making the Food Stamp Program a significant component in the well-being
of children in many low-income households. To shed light on the efficacy
of food stamps in helping households meet basic needs, ERS researchers
added the value of food stamp benefits to household income and then measured
the effect on child poverty rates. The analysis in this report indicates
that the Food Stamp Program plays an important role in reducing the depth
and severity of poverty.
Issues in Food Assistance—The
Issues in Food Assistance series, part of ERS's Food Assistance and Nutrition
Research Program, addresses a variety of topics related to the USDA food
assistance programs. The series includes several reports relevant to the
Food Stamp Program, including The
Standard Deduction in the Food Stamp Benefit Formula, Assessing
the Self-Sufficiency of Food Stamp Leavers, and How
Unemployment Affects the Food Stamp Program.
The Summer 2002
issue of Focus included papers from a conference sponsored
by ERS and the Institute for Research on Poverty. Several of the papers
are relevant to research on the Food Stamp Program (FSP), including the
conference's title essay, "Income volatility and the implications
for food assistance programs." Other papers relevant to the FSP include
"The role
of food stamps in stabilizing income and consumption," "Short
recertification periods in the U.S. Food Stamp Program," "Food
stamps and the elderly: Why is participation so low?" and "Gateways
into the Food Stamp Program."
See
all recommended readings...
recommended data products
FANRP Project Database—Provides
details on FANRP research projects, both past and ongoing, including the
project's objective, funding level, researchers, and expected completion
date. See projects on the FSP.
National data useful
in food and nutrition assistance research—Brief descriptions
of national surveys and data sets with links to their sources. Surveys
and data sets relevant to the Food Stamp Program include:
newsletters
Sign Up Now—Keep current on activities in the Food Assistance and
Nutrition Research Program (FANRP) by subscribing to our free e-mail notification
service. You will receive announcements of our latest reports and other
news. You can also get the latest on other activities at ERS. To become
a subscriber, please submit this short application
form. Be sure to check "Food & Nutrition Assistance Programs"
under Particular Topic Areas to receive information about FANRP activities.
related links
Food Stamp Nutrition
Education (FSNE)—Provides education to food stamp recipients
to encourage healthy food choices consistent with the Dietary Guidelines
for Americans and the Food Guide Pyramid. The Federal-State commitment
to this joint nutrition education program has grown rapidly in recent
years, generating increased interest in program impact. This link provides
access to research and evaluation materials provided at two workshops
held in 2003 to address the growing interest in nutrition education.
Food and Nutrition Service—Administers
USDA's food assistance programs and provides program guidelines, data,
and research on the Food Stamp Program, WIC, and child nutrition programs.
The agency's food stamp research includes a useful report series on the
characteristics
of food stamp participants and another on trends in the FSP participation
rate relative to the eligible population.
USDA reports
on the U.S. Food Stamp Program—Reports published before 1998
are available on the web site for USDA's National Agricultural Library.
Some of these scanned documents are large and may open slowly in web browsers,
so the reader is advised to download them first and then open them using
the Acrobat Reader program.
images gallery
The food assistance and nutrition program image
gallery includes charts and data for the number
of food stamp participants, the average
monthly benefit per person, the distribution
of participants by age, and other characteristics of food stamp households.
See the Food
Stamp Program section of the gallery for these charts and more.
for more information, contact: Margaret
Andrews
web administration: webadmin@ers.usda.gov
page updated: October 19,
2004
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