Description/Abstract

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is designed to address the economic roots of food insecurity. However, SNAP participation rates among older adults substantially lag behind those of other age groups. Based on the book, Food for Thought: Understanding Older Adults Food Insecurity, this brief describes how SNAP is not well designed for older adults in three respects: (1) the high levels of administrative burden associated with eligibility, certification, and benefit-determination processes, (2) the low value of SNAP benefits compared with the high costs associated with redeeming them, and (3) the high levels of state variation in SNAP policies that produce substantially different conditions for SNAP depending on where one lives.

Document Type

Research Brief

Keywords

Older adults, food insecurity, SNAP, administrative burden

Disciplines

Food Studies | Gerontology | Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration | Public Policy | Social Welfare

Date

9-30-2025

Language

English

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by Grant #1908-17412 to Madonna Harrington Meyer and Grant #1905-15081 to Colleen Heflin from the Russell Sage Foundation. Any opinions expressed are those of the principal investigator(s) alone and should not be construed as representing the opinions of the Foundation. Our thanks to Camille Bagin, Claire Pendergrast, Sarah Reilly, Winston Scott, Rebecca Wang, Shanel Khaliq, Frank Sarfo, Anna Delapaz, Gabriella Alphonso, Clay Fannin, Siobhan O’Keefe, Hyojeong Kim, Julia Stafford, Xiaohan Sun, Lauryn Quick, Yuwei Zhang, and Dongmei Zuo with data and research assistance. Our thanks to Suzanne Nichols, our editors at the Russell Sage Foundation, Shannon Monnat, and Alyssa Kirk for editorial assistance.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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