Studies may shed light on food-stamp purchases

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is expected to release studies this spring that will provide more information about the types of foods purchased by people on food stamps and whether that information can be tracked on a national level.

Pressure for that type of detailed information has been building across the political spectrum as the program ballooned in cost during the Great Recession. The concern among public health advocates and fiscal conservatives is that a substantial amount of taxpayer money is spent on soda and junk food.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program cost taxpayers $73.7 billion last year, down from nearly $80 billion the year before, according to the USDA, which administers the program. The average participation in SNAP – 46.5 million people last year – has more than doubled in the last 10 years.

The number of retailers that accept food stamps increased from 193,753 in 2009 to 252,962 in 2013 – which includes groceries, gas stations and big-box stores. But what SNAP participants buy in those stores is largely unknown. Unlike the Women, Infants and Children program, which restricts purchases to foods that are deemed nutritious, SNAP participants can use their benefits on virtually all foods, including energy drinks, soda and chips.

"As currently designed, SNAP is not promoting public health," said Michele Simon, a public health lawyer in California and publisher of the Eat Drink Politics website. "We need specific data on the types of products purchased so we can make informed policy decisions about how to improve the program. This will help participants access healthier foods and put real meaning into the 'N' – which stands for nutrition – in SNAP."

The USDA in the last few years embarked on two studies related to food stamp purchases. One was a feasibility study to determine whether purchase data could be captured when SNAP recipients use their electronic benefit transfer cards. The other study examined point-of-sale food purchases of SNAP recipients, and compared them with purchases made by non-SNAP households.

Impaq International of Maryland is conducting both studies. Sam Walters, an Impaq spokesman, said the first study is still underway, while the second study has been turned over to the USDA.

There is strong interest in some quarters for purchase data. In Montana, Republican state Rep. Tom Burnett is considering using legislative subpoena power to gather receipts from retailers in order to study the issue.

"I'd like to see if it's possible," Burnett said. "It would be tremendously interesting to program managers and policymakers."

Burnett has studied SNAP purchases from receipts that were turned over to him by a food wholesaler. His limited study found that 28 percent of purchases were for sugar beverages, candy and bagged snacks.

Nationally, Rep. Tom Marino, R-Pa., said he plans to bring legislation that would establish a pilot program to collect and make public SNAP purchase data. A similar effort in the last Congress failed after food industry lobbyists portrayed the bill as an effort to create a "food police," he said.

Marino said he became interested in the issue after his daughter worked as a cashier in a grocery store. She and her friends told him stories about how SNAP benefits were used, and the former prosecutor decided that policymakers need more facts about the program.

SNAP, he said, is a good program that helps the vulnerable. But it should also be more transparent.

"We have a right as taxpayers to know where $80 billion is spent," he said.

Ellis also reports for the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, S.D.