Theravive Home

A new study published in Health Services Research looked at whether Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) work requirements in the U.S. increased mental health care use.

“We wanted to determine whether imposing work requirement policies on SNAP (food stamp) enrollees increased their levels of depression and anxiety,” study author Lindsay Allen told us. “There is a well established link between food insecurity and poor mental health so we strongly suspected that these work requirements – which make it harder for poorer people to get food – would harm enrollees’ mental health.”

According to the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, almost 90 per cent of U.S. households were food secure in 2021. The other ten per cent of households were food insecure, almost four per cent of which or over five million households that had very low food security. These percentages didn’t change from the year before.

“Work requirements – not just in SNAP, but for other public benefit programs like Medicaid – are a highly controversial topic in policy circles these days,” Allen told us. “It’s critical that policy decisions are based on evidence, rather than politics. We looked at what happened to SNAP enrollees when they lost access to their food stamps due to the introduction of work requirement policies,” Allen told us.

The federal U.S. government spent a total of $182.5 billion on USDA’s food and nutrition assistance programs in 2021. This was 49 per cent more in spending than in 2020 ($122.8 billion). Spending on SNAP also increased to a new level by 44 per cent in 2021 compared to 2020.

Children accounted for 44 per cent of all SNAP participants in 2018. Adults accounted for 42 per cent of SNAP participants in 2018. SNAP served an average of over 35 million people per month in 2019. The state with the highest enrolment in SNAP was New Mexico at almost 20 per cent. The state with the lowest enrolment in SNAP was Wyoming at just over four per cent.

According to USDA Food and Nutrition Service in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, SNAP requirements include having to apply in the state in which the person currently lives and there are certain resource and income limits which are updated annually.

Researchers found that exposure to SNAP work requirements was associated with increases in health care use for mood disorders and anxiety among enrollees.

“Though we were not surprised by the results, we were very disheartened by them. We urge policy makers to consider all of the ripple effects that occur when they make changes to public benefit programs.”

“SNAP puts food on the table for poor families – and that improves their physical and mental health, along with their financial stability,” Allen told us. “By taking away these benefits from families, we are harming them across all of these dimensions. And importantly – we are not seeing people enter the workforce as a result of these policy changes – which was their intended effect. So now we’ve got policies that do not improve the economy, and that also harm lower income individuals in multiple ways. Any policy maker needs to ask themselves: is it worth it?”