The omnibus bill passed by Congress last month included $140 billion for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for fiscal year 2023, and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that SNAP outlays will exceed $100 billion annually for at least the next decade. In 2019, SNAP expenditures totaled approximately $58 billion (in 2021 dollars) and SNAP expended $23 billion (in 2021 dollars) in 2000. What explains this tremendous growth?

For context, SNAP is one of the largest federal safety-net programs for families facing economic need, behind only Medicaid in total expenditures. It provides government benefits—funded completely by the federal government—to help households afford food. Households with income below 130 percent of the federal poverty level ($32,000 for a family of three) are generally eligible. Households can use SNAP to purchase almost any food or beverage except alcohol, and the only work requirement applies to able-bodied adults age 18–49 without dependent children, although states frequently waive this requirement.

Increased economic need cannot explain the upward trend in the SNAP caseload, though. Unemployment rates fluctuated over the past 20 years, but rates were lower in 2017–2019 than they were in the previous economic peak of 2000–2001, yet millions more people received SNAP in 2019 than in the early 2000s.

Changes in program take-up, however, can explain SNAP increases to a degree. Participation rates (the percentage of those eligible participating in the program) have steadily increased, from 59 percent in 2000 to 72 percent in 2010 and to 82 percent in 2019. Increased program take-up likely resulted from a number of factors, including increased awareness, reduced stigma, and a rebranding toward nutrition following the 2008 Farm Bill. Policies that relaxed eligibility rules also help explain increasing caseloads. Many states eliminated SNAP’s asset test in the years following the Great Recession and waived work requirements. Identifying the precise contribution of each factor to SNAP caseload increases remains challenging, though, because all of these factors interrelate.

Historically, expenditure increases have closely followed caseload increases, mainly because benefit levels typically adjusted only for inflation each year (Figure 1). But the pandemic and subsequent policy decisions changed that, illustrated by the spike in total costs in 2020 (Figure 1).

Several pandemic-relief measures created and sustained elevated SNAP spending levels. The first action was SNAP emergency allotments. Initially, emergency allotments intended to avoid SNAP recipients having to come physically into an office to report income changes (such as lost employment) during the peak of the pandemic. Instead, the policy allowed all households to receive the maximum benefit allowed. But many SNAP households have received almost three years of these “emergency” benefits. Congress finally ended these payments in the FY 2023 omnibus bill, which largely explains CBO’s projected spending declines starting in 2024 (Figure 1).

On top of emergency allotments, Congress passed an across- the-board 15 percent increase in SNAP benefit levels as an economic relief measure in December 2020. The American Rescue Plan in April 2021 extended the 15 percent increase until it expired in September 2021.

However, in October 2021, President Biden’s administration used a routine administrative action—reevaluating the Thrifty Food Plan—to increase SNAP benefits by an average of 23 percent without congressional input. The effort was clearly a way to offset the expiration of the pandemic-related increase, and apparently was within the law. However, the GAO recently concluded that the USDA improperly accelerated the timeline to correspond to the expiration of pandemic relief, while also failing to provide proper justification for the benefit increase.

SNAP was already on an increasing trajectory stemming from years of policy changes that relaxed eligibility and increased program take-up. However, actions since the pandemic have increased SNAP expenditures well beyond caseload increases, with considerable effect.

CBO’s baseline projections for SNAP in January 2020 (prior to the pandemic) included slight annual increases due primarily to caseload fluctuations and inflation adjustments (Figure 2). The July 2021 projection incorporated the pandemic-relief efforts (namely emergency allotments and the temporary 15 percent increase), which the CBO expected to expire by 2024 and to return SNAP to historical levels. The May 2022 projection incorporated the Thrifty Food Plan change, increasing total projected SNAP outlays by more than $20 billion per year through 2032 compared to projections from July 2021 (Figure 2).

In the past two decades, SNAP has transformed from a $20 billion per year safety net program, to upwards of $100 billion per year. As expenditures grow, Congress can no longer ignore SNAP’s problems, including unjustified benefit increases, employment disincentives, and negative health outcomes. As Congress begins debating legislation to reauthorize SNAP, it is important to rein in spending while reforming SNAP to achieve better outcomes.

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