Abstract The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides resources to supplement household food expenditures in order to achieve a nutritious diet. Determining the amount of support required - or extent of food expenditure poverty -- entails comparing available resources for food to a nutrition-determined threshold. Clearly the value of the threshold will affect the degree of food expenditure poverty. If the threshold value is inaccurate, the calculated degree of poverty will be inaccurate. USDA uses a threshold for setting SNAP benefits that does not vary geographically or temporally, so consequently (food expenditure) poverty may be understated or overstated in different regions and time periods. This article compares food expenditure poverty estimates for SNAP participants when geographical differences in the threshold are ignored versus not ignored. In addition, the article decomposes household food expenditures into Food-Away-From-Home (FAFH), Food-at-Home (FAH), personal funded FAH, and SNAP funded FAH in order to assess the degree to which each of these contribute to reducing food expenditure poverty. The general findings are that all food expenditure poverty measures are worse when geographical differences are taken into account. In addition, the analysis shows that FAH expenditures, and in particular SNAP FAH expenditures, contribute the most to reducing food expenditure poverty in SNAP households. The policy implications are that food expenditure poverty is currently underestimated in the US by ignoring geographical differences in thresholds, but the food expenditure poverty would be even worse without SNAP benefits. Geographical adjustments to the national threshold could help reduce food expenditure poverty across regions.

中文翻译：

---

SNAP 福利是否足够？地理和食品支出分解

摘要 补充营养援助计划 (SNAP) 提供资源来补充家庭食品支出，以实现营养饮食。确定所需的支持数量——或粮食支出贫困的程度——需要将可用的粮食资源与营养确定的阈值进行比较。显然，阈值会影响粮食支出贫困的程度。如果阈值不准确，计算的贫困程度就会不准确。美国农业部使用一个阈值来设置 SNAP 福利，该阈值不会随地域或时间而变化，因此（食品支出）贫困可能在不同地区和时间段被低估或高估。本文比较了忽略阈值与未忽略阈值的地域差异时 SNAP 参与者的粮食支出贫困估计。此外，本文将家庭食品支出分解为外出食品 (FAFH)、在家食品 (FAH)、个人资助的 FAH 和 SNAP 资助的 FAH，以评估这些支出的贡献程度减少粮食支出贫困。总的发现是，当考虑到地域差异时，所有粮食支出贫困衡量指标都会变得更糟。此外，分析表明 FAH 支出，尤其是 SNAP FAH 支出，对减少 SNAP 家庭的粮食支出贫困贡献最大。政策含义是，通过忽略阈值的地域差异，美国目前低估了食品支出贫困，但如果没有 SNAP 福利，食品支出贫困会更加严重。对国家阈值的地域调整有助于减少各地区的粮食支出贫困。