Applying Racial Equity to U.S. Federal Nutrition Assistance Programs - Flipbook - Page 18
Recommendations: Reducing Racial Inequities in SNAP
As just shown, SNAP promotes equity in various ways. But there are additional opportunities to strengthen nutrition
outcomes among households of color, because recipients of color still face disparities in food security. Seven ways SNAP can
apply a racial equity lens include:
Recommendation 1
Increase the monthly benefit amount
Recommendation 2
Increase access to and consumption of healthier food options
Recommendation 3
Eliminate practices that exclude or hurt people of color
Recommendation 4
Support SNAP-related measures that promote equity
Recommendation 5
Strengthen hiring, training and accountability of caseworkers
Recommendation 6
Establish a mechanism for SNAP beneficiaries to equitably participate in program
design, planning, and evaluation
Recommendation 7
Strengthen the collection and disaggregation of data within SNAP
Recommendation 1
Increase the monthly benefit amount
Context
Congress should pass legislation to increase SNAP benefits for the following reasons: (1) benefits routinely run out before
the end of the month; (2) healthier food is more expensive; and (3) the program assumes that participants have more time to
cook than is actually the case.
Very few SNAP households can make their benefits stretch for the entire month. Some studies have shown that many
families consume significantly fewer calories toward the end of the month.52 SNAP benefits are based on USDA’s “Thrifty
Food Plan,” but this practice should be discontinued. The Thrifty Food Plan was derived from the reported spending of people
who were food insecure and could not afford a nutritionally adequate diet. In other words, it is a nutritionally inadequate plan
because it is modeled on a nutritionally inadequate plan.53
Running out of grocery money leads to health problems. For example, the National Institutes of Health found that the rate
of hospital visits for low blood sugar was higher in the last week of the month among lower-income patients, but not among
other patients—suggesting that running out of food contributes to an increased risk of hospitalization.54 55
Since people of color are far more likely to be food insecure, they are also disproportionately harmed by an inadequate
benefit. One in four African American children and one in five Latino/a children are food insecure, compared with one in eight
white children.56 The Institute would expect similar disparities for households with Indigenous, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific
Islander children, but does not have disaggregated data for them.
18
APPLYING RACIAL EQUITY TO U.S. FEDERAL NUTRITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS: SNAP, WIC AND CHILD NUTRITION
