![]() Such a move would be a major change in federal policy. The study comes after the Trump administration released this fall a “public charge” proposal that would make it more difficult for individuals seeking admission or legal permanent residency in the United States if they have used a broad range of government assistance programs, including SNAP. “FNS wants to ensure that all individuals eligible for our programs have access to the nutrition assistance they need to live healthy, productive lives,” the USDA spokesperson said. The USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, which administers SNAP at the national level, said it won’t comment on unpublished data, but a spokesperson said the agency appreciated studies “about these valuable programs.” The numbers have dropped closer to 41 million, according to the most recent figures from USDA. At its peak in 2013, the program covered 47 million people. SNAP enrollment has been dropping as the economy has improved, but the numbers have not returned to pre-recession levels. “I am a little cautious to not over extrapolate the results to a single cause.” “We think that’s a likely reason for many people dropping out, but it could also be because the economy is improving as well,” Bovell-Ammon told POLITICO in an interview. In a statement announcing the results, Bovell-Ammon cited immigration rhetoric, increased immigration enforcement and detention, and other policy changes, as potential drivers. ![]() Researchers cautioned that there could be many explanations for the trend, though they surmise the current political environment is a major contributing factor. The SNAP study, which is preliminary and has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, was released this week at the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting in San Diego. Among these families, SNAP participation declined from 44.7 percent to 42.7 percent, a 2 percentage point drop. more than five years did not show a steep decline. Immigrant families with mothers who have been in the U.S. But in the first half of 2018 the trend started to reverse, the survey showed, dropping nearly 10 percentage points to 34.8 percent for the same subset of families. The rate of participation had gone up to 43 percent over those 10 years. The report found that SNAP participation had been increasing between 20 for immigrant families whose mothers had been in the United States for less than five years. Researchers interviewed immigrant families in primary clinics and emergency rooms, asking questions about their family’s level of food security as well as participation in SNAP, among other topics. The latest SNAP study surveyed mothers of children four years and younger in five cities: Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Minneapolis and Little Rock, Ark. citizen children if they meet the income requirements. Undocumented immigrants are not eligible to receive SNAP benefits, but households can receive assistance for their U.S. The notion that low-income families who are legally eligible for government assistance but are afraid to access such services is alarming for anti-hunger and health advocates. “We were hearing the anecdotal reports of people dropping out of SNAP and WIC, so we started looking at our data to see if that was true among the families we interview,” said Allison Bovell-Ammon, lead researcher and deputy director for policy strategy at Boston Medical Center’s Children’s HealthWatch, which conducted the study.Ĭhildren’s HealthWatch is a network of pediatricians and health researchers that tracks data from urban hospitals across the country, with the goal of measuring how various policies are impacting children in real time. The study seems to confirm months of anecdotal reports, from New York to San Antonio, Texas, that widespread fear in immigrant communities has had a chilling effect on participation in SNAP and other government aid programs like WIC, a federal nutrition program aimed at pregnant women and children.
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