How Were Extra SNAP Benefits Spent?

SNAP has broad reach and assists low-income households substantially with their food purchases. Figure 1 shows the monthly number of SNAP participants in Panel A and distributed benefits per household since 2019 in Panel B. The early substantial drop, both in participation and benefits, marks the disruption due to the government shutdown, which caused most of the February 2019 benefits to be distributed early in January 2019.2Participation in SNAP increased at the beginning of the pandemic—4 million more people enrolled from February to April in 2020—and has remained around the same level since.