THE SECRET LIFE OF FOOD STAMPS

SNAP is a government subsidy with two lives. First, low-income people get financial help to buy food. Then, when they spend their SNAP benefits at checkout counters, the government pays those stores for that food, payments that include the stores’ profits. Last year $76 billion flowed from the U.S. Treasury to people’s SNAP cards. That money then flowed into the revenue streams of about 240,000 stores across the country. Unfortunately, a lot of the information about how stores benefit from food stamps is confidential. Federal law prohibits the government from sharing “relevant income and sales tax filing documents” that a store might submit in the course of applying to be part of SNAP. For many years USDA officials have interpreted that to mean no information can be released on how much an individual store or company makes in SNAP revenue. A federal appeals judge recently agreed that this is a misinterpretation of the law and sent the issue back to a lower court for review.

 

Source: Slate, 4/1/14, SNAP Secrets