Surprise: Government Report Concludes Food Stamp Program Isn’t Spending Enough

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(Reuters) – A report by a panel of experts released on Thursday questioned whether the federal government’s food stamp program adequately provides for healthy diets for the more than 47 million low-income people who rely on the benefit.

The report by the National Academy of Sciences found that the aid for families to pay for groceries, officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, does not account for many barriers to finding affordable, nutritious food by inner-city shoppers.

Panelists for the academy, an independent group of scientists who advise the federal government, also said benefits lag behind the increasing cost of food and the program penalizes beneficiaries with jobs.

The U.S. Agriculture Department, which administers the aid program, sought the report to help it determine the best way to assess whether food stamps benefits are adequate for recipients to have access to a healthy diet.

“We will thoroughly review the analysis and recommendations contained in this report and use them to help set our agenda for future program research,” USDA said in a statement.

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