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The Center on Budget & Policy Priorities issued the following news release:
New and emerging research links the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps), the nation's most important anti-hunger program, with improved health outcomes and lower health care costs. This research adds to previous work showing SNAP's powerful capacity to help families buy adequate food, reduce poverty, and help stabilize the economy during recessions.
SNAP is the primary source of nutrition assistance for many low-income people. In a typical month of 2017, SNAP helped about 42 million low-income Americans afford a nutritious diet. It provides important nutritional support for low-wage working families, low-income seniors, and people with disabilities living on fixed incomes: close to 70 percent of SNAP participants are in families with children, and more than one-quarter are in households with seniors or people with disabilities. While SNAP provides only a modest benefit -- just $1.40 on average per person per meal in 2017 -- it forms a critical foundation for the health and well-being of low-income Americans, lifting millions out of poverty and improving food security.
Although evaluating SNAP's impact presents a daunting challenge in part because it is so widely available and because participants tend to be substantially different from non-participants, research emerging in the last ten years suggests that SNAP may affect household well-being in ways that extend beyond its intended aim to improve food security and nutrition. The available evidence suggests that SNAP is at least associated with and may promote better health and lower health care costs. And, to the extent this connection exists, it is plausible that policies that limit program eligibility and cut SNAP benefits would harm health and raise health care costs. Substantial research on SNAP and related areas has shown:
* Food insecurity increases the risk of adverse health outcomes, complicates the ability to manage illness, and is linked to higher health care costs. On average, after controlling for a range of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics expected to affect food security and health care costs, people in food-insecure households -- those lacking consistent access to adequate food at some point during the year due to limited resources -- spend roughly 45 percent more on medical care in a year ($6,100) than people in...