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  Approximately four in ten people eligible for the Food Stamp Program are not receiving benefits, according to USDA. See “Food Stamp Program Participation Rates: 2004” (summary and full report) posted at http://tinyurl.com/jxepb and http://tinyurl.com/e8k9z. In FY 2004 only 60.5 percent of eligible people were served. It appears that a greater percentage of eligible people were reached in 1994. Changes in methodology for making estimates, however, do not allow for comparisons between FY 2003 and years prior to FY 1999. Food Stamp Program participation rates also vary among the states. See USDA’s “Reaching Those In Need: State Food Stamp Participation Rates in 2003” Report Summary and Full Report.

• FRAC estimates that in 25 large urban areas alone, federal Food Stamp Program benefits are being missed by 2.9 million likely eligible people; those urban areas are foregoing $2.1 billion in federal benefits that could be generating additional local economic activity. See FRAC press release and report, "Food Stamp Access in Urban America: A City-by-City Snapshot."

• A July 1999 report prepared for USDA by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. identified lack of client information as a barrier to participation: among non-participating persons eligible for food stamp benefits surveyed in late 1996, nearly three-quarters (72 percent) were not aware that they were eligible.

• Urban Institute research suggests that many families leaving the Food Stamp Program in 1999 were still eligible. (See Urban Institute's "Former Welfare Families and the Food Stamp Program: The Exodus Continues," April 2001.)

• Federal safety-net programs (e.g. food stamps, health insurance) are being better utilized by families that left welfare between 2000 and 2002, due in part to improved state policies that help eligible families receive assistance. Compared to welfare recipients who left the program during the boom years (1997 to 1999), recent leavers (2000 to 2002) were more likely to return to the program or be subsisting in families with no employed member or one receiving disability payments. See the Urban Institute study "Welfare Reform: One Size Doesn't Fit All" (August 2003).

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