FOOD INSECURITY WOULD BE WORSE WITHOUT SNAP

“Food insecurity would have been even higher if SNAP had not been expanded in an effort to combat the effects of the worst recession since the 1930s,” write four researchers for the National Bureau of Economic Research. They found that 11.3% of U.S. households were food insecure in the four years before the recession; from 2008-2012, more than 14.5% of all households and 21% of households with children under 18 were food insecure. SNAP lifts 2.1 million children each year out of poverty, and new research by two of the researchers reports that since the program was introduced 50 years ago, the health of children receiving benefits improved in the short run and their health and educational outcomes permanently improved in adulthood. “We have a program that has been shown to work at combating food insecurity and the consequences of inadequate nutrition,” conclude the authors. “These facts are worth contemplating as Congress resumes the fight about whether and how to fund it.”

 

Source: U.S. News & World Report, 9/26/13, Food Insecurity & SNAP