The 2008-09 recession drove up food stamp enrollment by 19 million people, with the major increases clustered in regions with the greatest dislocation, such as Arizona, Florida, Michigan, and Nevada, rather than a broad increase nationwide, says associate sociology professor Tim Slack of Louisiana State University. Areas with traditionally strong economies or persistently high poverty rates showed less change in enrollment rates for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the formal name for food stamps.
“Increased SNAP participation was associated with increases in poverty, unemployment, and home foreclosures,” Slack wrote in Choices, the journal of agricultural economics. “SNAP receipt also jumped significantly in areas where the Latino population is growing – potentially reflecting the particular hardship the Great Recession inflicted on the construction sector, a part of the labor market where Latino labor factors prominently… finally, small-town America (micropolitan areas) was found to have experienced greater SNAP increases compared to other residential settings. Given the prominence of major metropolitan areas, like Phoenix and Las Vegas, in media accounts of the fallout from the recession, that SNAP use jumped most in small towns was not anticipated.”
As far as policy implications, Slack says “research suggests there may be opportunities for for targeted regional approaches to SNAP outreach and education.” And, “because key local-level factors show significant associations with changes in SNAP receipt, policymakers could use this information in the development of community profiles to identify and anticipate demand for food assistance.” SNAP was “especially responsive to the increased economic hardship wrought by the crisis. In short, the program did what it is designed to do,” Slack says, while caseload for at least one welfare program continued to drop despite the recession.