The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

The text below is a portion of the complete document.

The Food Stamp Program is the leading program to help prevent hunger among low-income people in the United States. It is the largest of 15 domestic food and nutrition assistance programs administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS). In the District of Columbia, the Income Maintenance Administration (IMA) of the Department of Human Services administers the Food Stamp Program, managing a caseload of more than 45,000 households. This caseload adds up to more than 15 percent of all residents in the District of Columbia.¹ The District of Columbia, which has been recognized by FNS as having one of the highest participation rates in the country, managed food stamp benefits for more participants than nine states in 2004.²

Despite the size of the District of Columbia's Food Stamp Program, no studies have taken a focused look at the characteristics of the city's food stamp population. The District of Columbia is regularly included in national comparative assessments of the Food Stamp Program, but this "state"-level information doesn't provide the detail necessary for program monitoring within the city. To get a better look at food stamp participation for different groups of people and across different areas of the city, this brief examines administrative data provided by the IMA. The characteristics of food stamp recipients examined in this brief, such as age, ethnicity, household size, and location in the city, provide the summary information necessary for monitoring program enrollment and for developing more strategic enrollment outreach. The profile of food stamp households also provides some of the population information necessary for developing targeted nutritional education campaigns.

In addition to profiling the city's food stamp population, this brief examines the relative access to grocery stores for food stamp households. This analysis of market access is done in two steps. First we profile the geographic distribution of stores that accept food stamps in the District of Columbia by listing the types of markets available to food stamp recipients in different areas of the city. Then we compare the location of larger grocery stores with the location of food stamp households in the District of Columbia. Combining the information in this way allows us to examine the distribution of grocery stores from the perspective of the food stamp households, providing a better understanding of the challenges associated with using food stamp benefits in different areas of the city.

Notes from this section of the report

1. Calculated using July 2004 individual food stamp participation total over the 2004 Census population estimate for the District of Columbia (553,523).

2. State-by-state comparisons can be made using yearly estimates for a variety of items including average number of food stamp participants, average households, and average benefit. These data can be found on the FNS web site at http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/fspmain.htm.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

Usage, posting and reprint of materials on the UI web site:

Most publications may be downloaded free of charge from the web site in PDF format. This information may be used and copies made for research, academic, policy or other non-commercial purposes. Proper attribution is required.

Copyright of the written materials contained within the Urban Institute website is owned or controlled by the Urban Institute. Posting UI research papers on other websites is permitted subject to prior approval from the Urban Institute—contact paffairs@urban.org.

If you are unable to access or print the PDF document please contact us or call the Publications Office at (202) 261-5687.