As Trump tries to tighten the definition of “hungry,” all 50 states have made it easier to sign up for food stamps

To quantify the changes states have made to SNAP administration since the mid-1990s, the ERS identified a bunch of different policies that had statistically significant impacts on enrollment. Some of those policies—like California’s decision to fingerprint applicants—discourage people from signing up, leading to negative impact on enrollment. Others, like allowing people to apply for food stamps online, have a positive impact. (For this story, “positive” and “negative” refer to raw numbers, not value judgments.)  The researchers identified 10 policies and assigned a +1 or a -1 (positive or negative) for each rule. Positive numbers reflected increased enrollment; negative numbers reflected decreased enrollment. Then, they scored each state based on which policies were implemented over time. They also created a weighted index based on the effect each policy actually had on overall SNAP enrollment.  

What they found was that, in general, “accommodative” SNAP policies—those that have a positive impact on enrollment numbers—have made a more significant difference than policies that negatively impact SNAP signups. Part of that is because of the 10 policies they chose, 7 were assigned to the positive, or +1, category. Just three of the 10 were assigned a negative score.

The policies that have nudged SNAP the furthest in a user-friendly direction are pretty much what you’d expect: Some states have stopped looking at applicants’ savings accounts and other assets, electing instead to consider only their monthly earnings. Others have increased SNAP income limits, meaning applicants can make a little more than the federal minimum wage and still be eligible for benefits. These kinds of policy innovations make a lot of sense when you consider the differences in minimum wage and cost of living throughout the country: Why should a New York City resident have the same income limit as someone living in the state of Kansas, where the cost of living is lower?

The other innovations in the study’s “+” category include the availability of online applications and a policy called “simplified reporting,” which reduces the number of times a household has to call the SNAP office if their financial circumstances change. The implementation of Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT), where SNAP users receive their benefits on a magnetically encoded payment card every month, was found to lower the stigma associated with food stamps use and therefore improve enrollment. Federally funded radio or TV ads positively affected enrollment, but were discontinued in the early aughts.

The policies that negatively impacted SNAP enrollment included requiring households with working adults to get recertified every one to three months. The statistics show that the added burden of recertification depresses enrollment. Other barriers included fingerprinting and the eligibility restrictions for legal non-citizens implemented in the 1990s during welfare reform—a policy that, according to the Brookings Institution, decreased the use of benefits by people in that category by nearly 50 percent.

In both the weighted and unweighted indices, every single state has improved SNAP accessibility over the last couple of decades. But how do the negative effects of a sweeping policy change—like kicking many legal non-citizens out of the program—stack up against the positive effects of innovations like eliminating the asset test and online applications?

A policy’s “weight” is determined based on its impact on enrollment, so the heaviest policies are the ones that impact enrollment the most. The three highest-weighted policies were the also the three policies that negatively impacted enrollment: eligibility restrictions for non-citizens made the biggest difference, followed by short recertification periods and fingerprinting. The seven positive policies all weighed less than the least-impactful negative policy.

It’s important to note that total SNAP enrollment tracks more closely with the nation’s economy than it does with states’ individual policies. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, recent fluctuations in SNAP participation have more to do with the 2008 recession, the increase in participation that followed, and the expiration of certain Obama-era policies that made it temporarily easier for people to get SNAP benefits than any state’s decision to put the process on the internet.

Still, the index complicates the notion that handing states more autonomy in administering the SNAP program is either a good or bad thing. In some cases, it can lead to more efficient onboarding and more benefits for more people. In others, it can open the door for rules that discourage people from applying, like fingerprinting. What’ll be the impact of newly proposed rules, like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s efforts to drug-test SNAP applicants? Only time will tell.