U.S. Census Bureau

 Small Area Income & Poverty Estimates

 Model-based Estimates for States, Counties, & School Districts

Food Stamp Recipients


The Food Stamp Program is the one low-income assistance program that is uniform in its eligibility requirements and benefit levels across states (except for Alaska and Hawaii). While the definitions of income, household composition, and the resource income cutoffs are different from those used in the official measure of poverty, a household's eligibility for the program is determined by a standard that is tied to the poverty level.

Food Stamp Recipients for Counties

We obtain counts of the number of people participating in the food stamp program from the United States Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service (USDA/FNS). In most states, we use counts of participants for the month of July in the estimation process. In a few cases, however, the states were able to provide data only for other reference periods.

We control the county-level food stamp variable values to the state-level food stamp variable.

Food Stamp Recipients for States

We calculate the number of recipients by state as a 12-month average. The average has a delay of six months relative to the model's income year. For example, we used the average between July 1995 and June 1996 for the 1995 model.

A 12-month average produces a better measure of the typical number of poor that receive food stamps than a one-month figure. A 12-month average removes seasonality, smoothes out irregularities probably not related to income, and is more comparable with poverty rates based on annual income figures.

We also adjust isolated extreme values so that they are compatible with long-term trends. Outliers often result from special food stamp issuance in response to natural disasters. These special programs relax the usual eligibility criteria for a short period of time. We remove these additional recipients with the adjustments.

We also remove the additional recipients resulting from more lenient eligibility requirements in Alaska and Hawaii. We obtain estimates of the number of recipients in these states who would not be eligible in the continental United States from the "Characteristics of Food Stamp Households" survey of the USDA/FNS.

Go to the Food Stamp Program at the USDA for more information.


Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Data Integration Division, Small Area Estimates Branch
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