Food Insecurity After Leaving SNAP*

Abstract

Households that have recently left the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are more likely to be food insecure than those who remained on the program. We analyze data from the Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement to find reasons for this seeming anomaly. Analysis of a 2-year panel sample of households interviewed in 2 successive years found different conditions in 2 distinct groups. One third of households that left SNAP in one year returned in the following year and were more likely to have had very low food security in both years. Households that left SNAP in 1 year and remained off through the following year were also more likely than current recipients to have had very low food security in the first year, but by the end of the following year, the prevalence of very low food security was lower than among those still on the program. Logistic regression analysis indicates that, for households with very low food security, leaving SNAP was strongly associated with higher income and full-time employment, suggesting that most such households left SNAP because their income had increased so that they were no longer eligible.