What is Snap Dollars?

. SNAP, in conjunction with food banks, community groups, churches and volunteer organizations, collectively helps strengthen communities by providing the fuel and nutrition people need.

SNAP stands for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — more commonly known as food stamps. SNAP is a federal program that helps millions of low-income Americans put food on the table.

sNAP (or food stamps) provides families with their basic nutritional needs to get them through temporary hard times. It helps people get back on their feet and on the road to a better life — in 2015, SNAP lifted 4.6 million Americans above the poverty line, including 2 million children and 366,000 seniors. Moreover, SNAP helps to ensure that children are given a fair chance at a healthy adulthood, that seniors age with dignity and that family can care for themselves

SNAP has one of the most rigorous quality control systems of any public benefit program. Each year, states pull a representative sample of cases (totaling about 50,000 nationally) and review their decisions on which applicants received benefits and how much.

Only 3 percent of SNAP benefits represent overpayments, meaning they either went to ineligible households or went to eligible households but in excessive amounts. SNAP achieved its lowest error rate on record in fiscal year 2011, with a national overpayment rate of just 2.99 percent (see graph). The underpayment rate that year was 0.81 percent.

Relatively few payment errors reflect dishonesty or fraud. The overwhelming majority result from honest mistakes by recipients, eligibility workers, data entry clerks, or computer programmers. States report that almost 60 percent of the dollar value of overpayments and almost 90 percent of the dollar value of underpayments were their fault, not recipients’.

The Agriculture Department estimates it has cut the sale of SNAP benefits for cash by three-quarters over the past 15 years, to 1 percent of all benefits. To reduce SNAP trafficking, which violates federal law, SNAP benefits now come in the form of an electronic debit card that recipients can use only to buy food. Retailers or recipients who defraud the program by trading SNAP for money or misrepresenting their circumstances face tough criminal penalties.

Almost 95 percent of federal SNAP spending goes directly to families to buy food. Most of the rest goes toward administrative costs, including reviews to determine that applicants are eligible, monitoring of retailers that accept SNAP, and anti-fraud activities.

So after some investigation, here are some facts about the benefit, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

The takeaway is that food stamp fraud ballooned during the four years through 2016 but that it still represents a tiny percentage of the program.

For those who aren't familiar, the SNAP benefit is available to low-income individuals and families. For individuals, the maximum gross income they may earn in 2018 and still receive food stamps is $15,684. It is more for families

And the average monthly benefit for 2016 was a mere $125.40 per person, according to government statistics. (See Table 1 in this report.) There are also restrictions on what monetary assets are owned.

However, it isn't the size of the individual benefits (which are without doubt small) that is notable. It is the growth in the benefit fraud.

SNAP stands for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — more commonly known as food stamps. SNAP is a federal program that helps millions of low-income Americans put food on the table

Across the United States there are 9.5 million families with children on SNAP. It is the largest program working to fight hunger in America.

SNAP (or food stamps) provides families with their basic nutritional needs to get them through temporary hard times. It helps people get back on their feet and on the road to a better life — in 2015, SNAP lifted 4.6 million Americans above the poverty line, including 2 million children and 366,000 seniors. Moreover, SNAP helps to ensure that children are given a fair chance at a healthy adulthood, that seniors age with dignity and that family can care for themselves.

SNAP is absolutely critical to making sure no one in America goes hungry.

On top of that, SNAP supports America’s economy and creates jobs. Research from Moody’s Analytics suggests that for every dollar spent by SNAP, 1.7 dollars are added to the economy

A 2010 study by the USDA found that for every $1 billion of added SNAP funding, between 8,900 and 17,000 jobs were created. By contrast, another study found that for every $1 billion in cuts, 11,437 jobs would be destroyed.

SNAP (or food stamps) provides timely, targeted and temporary benefits to people in need so that Americans have access to nutritious food.

SNAP responds quickly to changes in our population, growing in response to increases in poverty and unemployment, and shrinking as the need is met and reduced.

SNAP is administered by the states, which have considerable discretion to adapt the program to best meet the needs of their residents.

SNAP (or food stamps) is targeted toward our most at-risk citizens, predominantly serving households with children, elderly or disabled members. Nearly half of all SNAP participants are children.

Federal eligibility for SNAP is limited to people with gross incomes up to 130% of the federal poverty line — meaning a family of four can make no more than $2,633 a month to receive benefits.

Able-bodied adults without dependents can only receive three months of benefits during any three-year period if they’re not working a minimum of 20 hours per week or participating in a training program.

SNAP benefits are delivered monthly through electronic debit (EBT) cards, which they are used to purchase groceries at one of the more than 238,000 authorized retailers nationwide.