The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) reduced poverty by just over 1 percentage point for the three-year period from 2016 to 2018, according to recently released U.S. Census Bureau data.
The Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) shows that SNAP – formerly known as food stamps – cut the poverty rate from 14.2% to 13.1%. This means that with SNAP benefits, an average 3.5 million fewer people were living below the poverty line during that three-year period.
However, there are notable state-level variations; New Mexico, Louisiana and Rhode Island were among the states where SNAP had the greatest anti-poverty impact (see Table 1 and Figure 1).
Figure 1
