Key Findings

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Though food price inflation moderated in 2023, relatively high food prices persisted and key federal COVID-19 pandemic aid expired. As result, families faced ongoing food hardship and tighter budgets.

The year before, in 2022, the inflation adjustment to SNAP benefits improved the benefits’ adequacy, and the share of counties with a gap between SNAP benefits and the cost of a meal dropped from 99 to 78 percent. However, this progress eroded almost entirely in 2023.

To understand how well SNAP helped families afford the cost of a meal amid these conditions, we compared the cost of a modestly priced meal with the maximum SNAP benefit before and after the USDA’s fiscal year 2024 cost-of-living adjustment.

Before the fiscal year 2024 cost-of-living adjustment (in January to September 2023), we find the following:

• The maximum SNAP benefit did not cover the cost of a modestly priced meal in 99 percent of US counties. The benefit covered meal costs in only 36 of the 3,144 counties.
• The five counties with the largest gaps were New York County, New York; Leelanau County, Michigan; Teton County, Idaho; Dukes County, Massachusetts; and Nantucket County, Massachusetts. Each had a meal price more than 75 percent higher than the maximum SNAP benefit, and New York County had a meal price more than double the maximum benefit. Most of these counties are rural (with a 7 or 9 rural-urban continuum code) and near tourist areas.
• Nationally, the average meal cost $0.63 (23 percent) more than the national average maximum benefit of $2.84, and the maximum benefit fell short of meeting monthly meal costs by $58.59.
• A larger gap existed between the cost of a meal and the maximum benefit in urban areas than in rural areas. On average, the cost of a meal exceeded the maximum benefit by $0.89 (33 percent) in urban areas and by $0.58 (21 percent) in rural areas. 

The implementation of the 2024 cost-of-living adjustment (which will remain in place until September 30, 2024) in October 2023 had little effect on the adequacy of SNAP benefits:

• The share of counties where the maximum SNAP benefit did not cover the cost of a meal dropped by only 1 percentage point, to 98 percent (65 counties). The five counties with the largest gaps remained the same as before the adjustment.
• Nationally, the amount by which meal costs exceeded SNAP benefits decreased minimally. The average meal cost $0.53 (19 percent) more than the national average maximum benefit of $2.84. The maximum benefit fell short of meeting monthly meal costs by $49.29.
• The amount by which meal costs exceeded SNAP benefits remained similar in urban and rural areas. On average, a meal cost $0.79 (28 percent) more than the maximum benefit in urban areas. In rural areas, a meal cost $0.48 (17 percent) more than the maximum benefit. Visit Urban’s data catalog to see the top 20 rural and urban counties with the largest gaps.

These trends follow numerous policy changes during the pandemic that affected the sufficiency of SNAP benefits. In 2021, the reevaluated Thrifty Food Plan increased the maximum SNAP benefit by 21 percent, drastically decreasing the share of counties with a gap between SNAP benefits and meal costs. Additionally, all households received the maximum SNAP allotment (called “emergency allotments”) during the pandemic. However, despite both of these policy shifts significantly reducing poverty, the ending of the emergency allotments across 35 states in 2023 and rising food costs in 2022 made it harder for many people to feed themselves and their families and directly influenced the outcomes we observed in 2023.

ABOUT

How do we estimate the SNAP benefit per meal?

The maximum SNAP benefit is the same for all counties in the 48 contiguous states and Washington, DC, and is adjusted for Alaska and Hawaii. Because we are interested in how well the maximum benefit can help people afford the cost of a modestly priced meal in their communities, we take an average of the maximum benefit each household size can receive and adjust it for each household size’s share of SNAP enrollees in 2022. We then divide the monthly benefit by the typical number of meals we assume people consume each month. For the 2023 cost-of-living adjustment, we arrive at a per meal maximum benefit of $2.73 for the 48 contiguous states, $3.40 in Alaska, and $5.21 in Hawaii; the national average weighted by county-level population sizes is $2.74. For the 2024 cost-of-living adjustment, we arrive at a per meal maximum benefit of $2.83 for the 48 contiguous states, $3.64 in Alaska, and $5.12 in Hawaii; the national average weighted by county-level population sizes is $2.84.

How do we calculate the average cost of a meal?

We use weekly reported food expenditures from the 2022 Current Population Survey and divide by meals eaten per week. We restrict the responses to those from households with incomes at or below 130 percent of the federal poverty level, which roughly equals the SNAP eligibility threshold for gross income before deductions. We also restrict responses from people who are food secure, as food insecure families are likely underspending on food, even for a Thrifty Food Plan meal, because of limited resources. When calculating a national average meal cost across counties, we weight county meal costs by the estimated number of SNAP participants in each county. On average, the national cost of a meal for households meeting our criteria was $3.26 in 2022. We then used the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator to trend this upward to a meal cost in 2023, which was $3.37.

How do we adjust the average meal cost for food prices by county?

We adjust the national cost per meal ($3.37) for the relative prices paid for the Thrifty Food Plan market basket in each county in the US. Our source for a county-level food price index is Feeding America’s annual Map the Meal Gap study, which is based on food price data contributed by NielsenIQ. We then translate the total market basket (including any applicable state and county sales taxes on groceries) into an adjustment factor that can be applied to any dollar amount. This adjustment differs by county, revealing differences in food costs at the county level.

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PROJECT CREDITS

This project is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. We are grateful to them and to all our funders, who make it possible for Urban to advance its mission. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation or to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Funders do not determine research findings or the insights and recommendations of Urban experts.

We are grateful for the data contributions from Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap study (supported by Conagra Brands Foundation), which uses food price data contributed by NielsenIQ to estimate county-level meal costs. We especially appreciate the assistance of Adam Dewey at Feeding America in updating the analysis and reviewing final products.

RESEARCH Elaine Waxman, Poonam Gupta, and Craig Gundersen from Baylor University

DESIGN Brittney Spinner and Christina Baird

DEVELOPMENT Rachel Marconi and Ben Chartoff

EDITING Alex Dallman and Michael Marazzi

WRITING Rachel Kenney, Serena Lei, and Emily Peiffer

View the project on Github.