Question

Outline and describe the US food assistance programs including assistance provided, population served, agency providing the program, legislation the program is authorized under (if applicable), and income eligibility for the following programs:  

SNAP, CSFP, TEFAP, USDA Foods, School Meal Programs, CACFP, WIC, SFMNP, Meals on Wheels, Congregate Meals.

Answer 1

Hunger and Food Insecurity
Congress has long been interested in issues of hunger and allocating federal resources to address hunger in this country. The federal programs discussed in this report pursue the goal of providing food to low-income and needy populations, seeking to prevent hunger. Some of these programs, such as the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), have deep roots dating to the Depression era. More recently, many policymakers are concerned not just with the economic challenges of purchasing enough food, but with the public health concerns of improving diet quality, reducing obesity, and preventing diet-related disease.2
Evaluating trends in hunger in our nation is crucial to understanding if the efforts to prevent hunger are working and in identifying vulnerable populations that need assistance. “Hunger,” however, is a challenging concept to measure. For that reason, “food security” and “food insecurity,” as opposed to “hunger,” are the prevailing terms used to describe the ability to access adequate food.
“Food security” and “food insecurity,” as defined by USDA, focus on economic and other access- related reasons associated with an individual’s ability to purchase or otherwise obtain enough to eat. They are also terms that can be objectively measured. USDA’s use of these terms came out of a decades-long collaboration between federal agencies and private-sector researchers to improve the measurement of hunger in the U.S. population.3 This consortium concluded that hunger, as an individual-level physiological condition, was difficult to measure through a household survey. They recommended food security and food insecurity as alternative concepts that captured the economic reasons for inadequate food and/or nutritional intake, rather than individual behaviors that may result in the physical condition of being hungry (for example, dieting or missing a meal
1 There are additional federal programs that may provide food or meal assistance but these programs fall outside of what is typically considered to be the domestic food assistance programs. For example, while the early childhood education program, Head Start, may provide funds that go, in part, to providing meals, Head Start is not considered a food assistance program and is not included in this discussion. Similarly, emergency disaster relief programs administered by the Department of Homeland Security may in part provide sustenance as part of disaster recovery, but those programs are also not included in this overview.
2 See, for example, USDA-FNS website, “About FNS,” https://www.fns.usda.gov/about-fns.
3 For further background, see National Research Council, Food Insecurity and Hunger in the United States: An Assessment of the Measure, Washington, DC, 2006, pp. 23-51, https://www.nap.edu/catalog/11578/food-insecurity- and-hunger-in-the-united-states-an-assessment.

This new food security measure was deployed in a multiquestion “Food Security Supplement” to the Census’s Current Population Survey (CPS) starting in 1995. In 2006, a National Academies panel convened at the request of USDA evaluated the measure, recommending its continued use with some refinements to the food security and insecurity definitions.4
Each year, USDA’s Economic Research Service (USDA-ERS) conducts an analysis based on the Food Security Supplement data.5 Data from the USDA-ERS’s 2017 study are included in this CRS report. Since 2006, USDA-ERS has recognized a spectrum of four levels of food security, listed below from highest to lowest:
Food Security:
High food security—Households had no problems, or anxiety about, consistently
accessing adequate food.
Marginal food security—Households had problems at times, or anxiety about, accessing adequate food, but the quality, variety, and quantity of their food intake were not substantially reduced.
Food Insecurity:
Low food security—Households reduced the quality, variety, and desirability of their diets, but the quantity of food intake and normal eating patterns were not substantially disrupted.
Very low food security—At times during the year, eating patterns of one or more household members were disrupted and food intake reduced because the household lacked money and other resources for food.6
Note that the National Commission on Hunger, a congressional commission that operated from 2014 to 2015, used “very low food security” as its working definition of “hunger” in its final report released in January 2016.7
In 2017, USDA-ERS found that 11.8% of U.S. households (where “household” includes one or more members) were food insecure—a statistically significant decline from 2016, when the rate was 12.3%, and recent highs of nearly 15% following the Great Recession.8 These rates, as well as the subset “very low food security,” are shown in Figure 1.
4 Ibid.
5 Alisha Coleman-Jensen, Matthew P. Rabbitt, Christian A. Gregory, Anita Singh, Household Food Security in the United States in 2017, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, ERR-256, September 2018, https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid=90022. Refer to this USDA-ERS report for additional measures of food security (e.g., regions, states, or populations of interest). The CPS is a monthly survey of about 60,000 U.S. households conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau.
6 USDA-ERS website, http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/ measurement.aspx.
7 National Commission on Hunger, Freedom from Hunger: An Achievable Goal for the United States of America, 2015, p. iv.
8 Alisha Coleman-Jensen, Matthew P. Rabbitt, Christian Gregory, Anita Singh, Household Food Security in the United States in 2017, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, ERR-256, September 2018, https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid=90022. The percentages shown in this report are estimates, based on a sample. A different randomly drawn sample from the same population would likely produce a slightly different estimate. ERS performed statistical tests to avoid mistaking sampling variability for real differences. A difference between estimates is “statistically significant” if it is large enough that fewer than 10% of all possible survey samples would show a difference of that size, even if there were no real change in the population.
Congressional Research Service 2Domestic Food Assistance: Summary of Programs
In summary, in 2017
 11.8% of U.S. households were food insecure (15.0 million households). This is a statistically significant decrease from 12.3% in 2016.
 4.5% of U.S. households had very low food security (5.8 million households), a statistically significant decline from 4.9% in 2016. (Households with very low food security are a subset of food insecure households.)
 58.4% of food insecure households reported that they participated in SNAP, WIC, or NSLP in the last month. However, this may be an underestimate because survey respondents often underreport participation in assistance programs.
Figure 1. Food Insecure Households, 1999-2017
Percentage of U.S. Households with Food Insecurity and Very Low Food Security
Source: CRS adapted from Household Food Security in the United States in 2017, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, ERR-256, September 2018, (and past years’ reports in the series) using data from U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 1998 to 2017 Food Security Supplements.
Notes: “Very low food security” is a subset of “food insecurity.”
USDA-ERS also analyzes food insecurity rates for different subpopulations and household types, finding subgroups above and below the national rates of food insecurity. Some examples of their 2017 findings include the following:
 7.9% of households that included an elderly member (aged 65 or older) were food insecure. This increase from 2016’s rate (7.8%) is not statistically significant.
 15.7% of households that included children were food insecure. Food insecure households with children do not always include children who are themselves food insecure, as adults often shield children. Therefore, only 7.7% of households with children included food insecure children. These changes from 2016 findings (which were 16.5% and 8.0%, respectively) are not statistically significant.
 21.8% of households headed by black, non-Hispanic individuals; 8.8% of households headed by white, non-Hispanic individuals; and 18.0% of households

headed by Hispanic individuals were food insecure. These were not statistically significant changes from 2016 rates (22.5%, 9.3%, and 18.5%, respectively).
Program Variation
There are a number of domestic food assistance programs. Although each of the 17 programs discussed in this report provides for food in some way, the ways in which each program accomplishes this goal vary. For example, programs vary with respect to the target population (e.g., pregnant women, children, older individuals), eligibility requirements, and types of assistance provided (e.g., commodity foods, prepared meals). In an April 2010 report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) listed 70 programs that pertain to food and nutrition but ultimately narrowed their study to a smaller subset of 18 programs that focus on food assistance or coordination of food assistance activities.9
One way to examine this variation is to compare the populations eligible for these domestic food assistance programs. For instance, the WIC program is available to children under the age of five, while the school meals programs (NSLP and School Breakfast Program [SBP]) become available to school-age children. Another way to examine this variation is to compare the benefits that these programs provide. Within this constellation of programs, federal resources provide benefits redeemable for uncooked foods, cash assistance to support program operations, USDA-purchased commodity foods (discussed further in the next section), and prepared meals. While some programs provide specific foods (e.g., through the federal and state requirements for “food package” in the Commodity Supplemental Food Program [CSFP] and WIC), SNAP gives benefits that may be redeemed for a wide variety of foods at authorized retailers. OAA programs provide prepared meals that not only assist those who lack adequate resources to purchase food, but can also assist those who lack the functional capacity to prepare a meal on their own.
The following sections of the report and the accompanying tables provide more details about the services, eligibility, participation, and funding for each program. They help illustrate the similarities and differences between the programs, including the extent to which they provide similar or distinct forms of assistance to similar or distinct populations.
USDA-FNS Programs
USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) administers domestic food assistance programs authorized in the farm bill (Table 1),10 as well as WIC and Child Nutrition Programs (Table 2). Table 1 and Table 2 provide details on the USDA-FNS programs, including services provided, eligibility, participation, and funding.
The USDA-FNS national office works in concert with USDA-FNS’s regional offices11 and state agencies. With respect to SNAP (formerly known as the Food Stamp Program), state agencies and
9 This GAO report focused on the 17 programs also covered by this report, as well as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP). U.S. Government Accountability Office, Domestic Food Assistance: Complex System Benefits Millions, but Additional Efforts Could Address Potential Inefficiency and Overlap among Smaller Programs, GAO-10-346, April 2010, pp. 51- 53.
10 The Community Food Projects Competitive Grant Program is administered by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA).
11 See also USDA-FNS website, “FNS Regional Offices,”

Domestic Food Assistance: Summary of Programs
legislatures have a number of options and waivers that can affect SNAP program operations from state to state. USDA-FNS’s “SNAP State Options” report illustrates how states are administering the program.12 With respect to school meals programs (National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program), state departments of education and school districts play a role in administering these programs. WIC and the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) are often coadministered by state and local health departments.
As mentioned above, USDA
commodity13 foods are foods purchased
by the USDA for distribution to USDA
nutrition programs. The programs in this
report that include USDA commodity
foods are The Emergency Food
Assistance Program (TEFAP),
Commodity Supplemental Food
Program (CSFP), National School
Lunch Program (NSLP), Summer Food
Service Program (SFSP), and Child and
Adult Care Food Program (CACFP).
USDA commodity foods are also
provided to the HHS-ACL’s Nutrition
Services Incentive Program (NSIP)
(Table 3). These programs distribute
“entitlement commodities” (an amount
of USDA foods to which grantees are entitled by law) as well as “bonus commodities” (USDA food purchases based on the needs of the agricultural producers).14
These domestic food assistance programs have a historical, and in most respects, ongoing relationship with farming and agriculture. For example, the first Food Stamp Program, a pilot program in the 1940s, sold orange and blue “food stamps” to program participants.15 While $1 would provide a program participant with $1 in value of “orange stamps” that could be spent on any food, the program participant would also receive an additional 50 cents worth of “blue stamps,” which could only be used to purchase agricultural products that were in surplus. Commodity donation programs that supported the post-Depression farm economy were precursors to the National School Lunch Program.16 TEFAP and several of the child nutrition programs still benefit from USDA commodity foods as well as USDA’s donation of bonus commodities, which USDA purchases based on agricultural producers’ identification of surplus goods or need for price support. In more contemporary examples, the 2014 farm bill (P.L. 113-
12 USDA-FNS, State Options Report: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program: February 6, 2018 (Options as of October 1, 2016), https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/snap/13-State_Options-revised.pdf.
13 “Commodity” or “commodities” in the context of food assistance is broader and distinct from the term used to describe corn, wheat, soybeans, etc. in the context of commodity support programs such as described in CRS Report R43448, Farm Commodity Provisions in the 2014 Farm Bill (P.L. 113-79).
14 For more on the procurement of USDA foods, see CRS Report RL34081, Farm and Food Support Under USDA’s Section 32 Program. For more information on FNS’s distribution of commodities, please see USDA-FNS website, Food Distribution Programs and Services, http://www.fns.usda.gov/fdd/food-distribution-programs.
15 USDA-FNS website, “A Short History of SNAP,”
16 Gordon W. Gunderson, USDA-FNS website, “The National School Lunch
USDA Food Assistance Resources
 USDA-FNS Website: http://www.fns.usda.gov/— Program descriptions, press releases, current policy guidance and regulations, and participation and spending data. Information is organized into SNAP, WIC, School Meals, Food Distribution, and other child nutrition programs.
research, and analysis on the participation and effectiveness of USDA-FNS programs.
 USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) Food and Nutrition Assistance Products: https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/ —ERS provides research on questions of food insecurity as well as program-specific questions.
Congressional Research Service 5

Domestic Food Assistance: Summary of Programs
79), 2010 child nutrition reauthorization (P.L. 111-296), and USDA initiatives include efforts to promote “farm-to-school” endeavors, seeking, for example, to facilitate school cafeterias’ purchasing from local and regional farms.17
Farm Bill
Table 1 lists those programs that were most recently reauthorized by the 2018 farm bill. The “farm bill” is an omnibus reauthorization and extension of dozens of farm, food, and nutrition laws. Most recently, Congress passed the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (P.L. 115-334), which is referred to as the “2018 farm bill.” The 2018 farm bill included 12 titles on topics ranging from conservation, rural development, and research to horticulture.18 The nutrition title, Title IV, included all of the programs listed in Table 1.
Farm bill nutrition programs have their authorizing language primarily in the
 Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 (originally P.L. 88-525, most recently amended by P.L. 115-334),
 Emergency Food Assistance Act of 1983 (originally P.L. 98-8, most recently amended by P.L. 115-334), and
 Agriculture Consumer and Protection Act of 1973 (originally P.L. 93-86, most recently amended by P.L. 115-334).
The primary food assistance program in the farm bill is SNAP. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), at the time of enactment, found that close to 76% of the forecasted 2018 farm bill spending was in the nutrition title, Title IV.19 This is nearly all due to the mandatory spending associated with SNAP. Formerly referred to as the Food Stamp Program, the federal program name change to SNAP was included in the 2008 farm bill (P.L. 110-246). Further detail on SNAP, beyond Table 1, is available in CRS Report R42505, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP): A Primer on Eligibility and Benefits.
Farm bill nutrition programs have generally been under the jurisdiction of the House Agriculture Committee and the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry.20 The 2018 farm bill was enacted on December 20, 2018, and provides authorization (primarily authorizations of appropriations) through FY2023 (September 30, 2023) for most nutrition program activities. CRS In Focus IF11087, 2018 Farm Bill Primer: SNAP and Nutrition Title Programs, also summarizes these programs and policies.
WIC and Child Nutrition Programs
Table 2 lists the programs authorized by the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act (P.L. 79-396) and the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 (P.L. 89-642). Broadly, the programs contained in these laws are the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children

18 For more information on the Omnibus Farm Bill, please consult CRS In Focus IF10187, Farm Bill Primer: What Is the Farm Bill?.
19 See CRS Report R45425, Budget Issues That Shaped the 2018 Farm Bill; compiled using the CBO Baseline by Title (unpublished; April 2018), and the CBO cost estimate of the conference agreement for H.R. 2 (December 11, 2018).
20 The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, described in the table, was passed and financed by the 2008 farm bill. It amended the Russell National School Lunch Act—a statute typically reauthorized elsewhere and in the jurisdiction of the House Education and the Workforce committee.

Domestic Food Assistance: Summary of Programs
(WIC) as well as the “child nutrition programs.” “Child nutrition programs” is a category used to describe the USDA-FNS programs that help to provide food for children in school or institutional settings.
The National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program provide a per-meal subsidy for each meal that is served for free, for a reduced price, or for a full price (called a “paid” meal). The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) and Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) will, under certain circumstances, provide free meals or snacks to all the children at a site, because it is often the site (not the child) that is subject to eligibility criteria. The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP), or snack program (see Table 1), is sometimes referred to as a child nutrition program. In this report, it is included in farm bill programs because FFVP has been more often amended by omnibus farm bills than child nutrition reauthorization legislation.
Historically, the WIC and child nutrition programs’ authorizing statutes were reauthorized for a five-year period. The most recent reauthorization as of the date of this report, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-296), was signed into law in December 2010. It reauthorized these programs through FY2015. Certain provisions from that law expired after September 30, 2015, but the vast majority of child nutrition and WIC programs and activities have continued due to the provision of funding in FY2016, FY2017, FY2018, and FY2019 appropriations laws.21

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