Participants' Experiences of the 2018-2019 Government Shutdown and Subsequent Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Benefit Disruption Can Inform Future Policy.

Wendi Gosliner,Natalie Price,Wei-Ting Chen,Cathryn Johnson,Ken Hecht,Lorrene Ritchie,Elsa Michelle Esparza

doi:10.3390/nu12061867

Abstract

The federal government shutdown from 22 December 2018 to 25 January 2019 created an unprecedented disruption in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. We conducted a cross-sectional qualitative study to begin to capture how the disruption affected food security and wellbeing among a small sample of California SNAP participants. We collected data from 26 low-income adults in four focus groups in four diverse California counties. We found that participants routinely struggle to secure an adequate and healthy diet in the context of high costs of living, the shutdown and benefit disruption added to participants’ stress and uncertainty and exacerbated food insecurity, and it diminished some participants’ faith in government. Participants reported that, while having additional benefits in January felt like a relief from typical end-of-month deprivation, the subsequent extended gap between benefit distributions and a lack of clarity about future benefits caused cascading effects as participants later had to divert money from other expenses to buy food and faced added uncertainty about future economic stability. Additionally, the shutdown highlighted challenges related to the availability, timing, and tone of communications between participants and SNAP agencies. Participants recommended that SNAP adjust benefit and eligibility levels to better address costs of living, improve customer service, and avoid future disruptions.

Highlights

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps), provides critical funds to low-income families to support food purchases, helping to alleviate poverty and food insecurity
Nutrients 2020, 12, 1867 the overall prevalence of food insecurity by as much as 30%, more than 37 million Americans, including more than half of households participating in SNAP, struggle with food insecurity [5,6,7]
Findings emerged across five themes: (1) the usual struggles participants face in securing an adequate diet; (2) general challenges participants experience utilizing the SNAP program; (3) specific challenges participants experienced with SNAP during the 2019 benefit disruption; (4) the negative impact the disruption had on participants’ food security, stress levels, finances, and perceptions of government support; and (5)

Summary

Introduction

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps), provides critical funds to low-income families to support food purchases, helping to alleviate poverty and food insecurity. In an average month in 2019, more than 35 million Americans participated in SNAP, at a total cost of approximately $60 billion dollars annually [1]. In 2018, SNAP lifted 3.2 million people out of poverty [2]; the poverty reducing benefits of SNAP are so large that, without the program, the child poverty rate in the U.S would be 18% instead of 13% [3]. Nutrients 2020, 12, 1867 the overall prevalence of food insecurity by as much as 30%, more than 37 million Americans, including more than half of households participating in SNAP, struggle with food insecurity [5,6,7]. Rates of food insecurity among non-Hispanic Black (21.2%) and Hispanic (16.2%) households are substantially higher than for White, non-Hispanic (8.1%) households [7]

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