Key Findings

Though food price inflation slowed in 2024 compared with 2022 and 2023, food prices were still 23.6 percent higher in 2024—following the expiration of key COVID-19 pandemic federal aid—than they were in 2020. As result, families faced household food insecurity at a rate nearing that experienced at the height of the Great Recession.

These trends follow key changes that affected the sufficiency of SNAP benefits over the past five years. In 2021, the reevaluated Thrifty Food Plan increased the maximum SNAP benefit by 21 percent, and significantly improved the benefits’ adequacy by drastically decreasing the share of counties with a gap between SNAP benefits and meal costs (the share of counties with a gap dropped from 99 to 78 percent). Additionally, all households received the maximum SNAP allotment (called “emergency allotments”) during the pandemic. Evidence shows both of these shifts significantly reduced poverty and may have mitigated further hardship after the ending of the emergency allotments across 35 states in 2023 and rising food costs in 2022. 

To understand how well SNAP helped families afford the cost of a meal amid these conditions, we compared the cost of a modestly priced meal with the maximum SNAP benefit in 2024 before and after the US Department of Agriculture’s fiscal year 2025 cost-of-living adjustment. View our key findings below and read our blog post to learn more.

Before the fiscal year 2025 cost-of-living adjustment (in January to September 2024), we find the following:

• The maximum SNAP benefit did not cover the cost of a modestly priced meal in 99 percent of US counties. The benefit covered meal costs in only 41 of the 3,144 counties.
• The gap between the maximum SNAP benefit and meal costs was larger in some counties than others.
  • The five counties with the largest gaps were New York County, New York; Leelanau County, Michigan; Teton County, Idaho; Teton County, Wyoming; and Marin County, California. Each had a meal price more than 75 percent higher than the maximum SNAP benefit, and New York County had a meal price more than double the maximum benefit. Two of these counties are rural (with a 7 or 9 rural-urban continuum code) and near tourist areas, while the other three are urban.
  • Overall, 53 percent of counties have a meal price more than 50 cents per meal higher than the maximum SNAP benefit.
• Nationally, the average meal cost $0.57 (20 percent) more than the national average maximum benefit of $2.84, and the maximum benefit fell short of meeting monthly meal costs by $53.01.
• A larger gap existed between the cost of a meal and the maximum benefit in urban areas than in rural areas. On average, the cost of a meal exceeded the maximum benefit by $0.82 (29 percent) in urban areas and by $0.53 (19 percent) in rural areas. 

The implementation of the 2025 cost-of-living adjustment (which will remain in place until September 30, 2025) in October 2024 had little effect on the adequacy of SNAP benefits:

• The share of counties where the maximum SNAP benefit did not cover the cost of a meal and the five counties with the largest gaps remained the same as before the 2025 adjustment.
• Nationally, the amount by which meal costs exceeded SNAP benefits remained the same. The average meal still cost $0.57 (20 percent) more than the national average maximum benefit of $2.84, with the same monthly shortfall of $53.01.
• The gap between the maximum benefit and the cost of a meal remained the same in urban areas (29 percent) and rural areas (19 percent). Visit Urban’s data catalog to see the top 20 rural and urban counties with the largest gaps.

ABOUT

How do we estimate the SNAP benefit per meal?
The maximum SNAP benefit is the same for all counties in the 48 contiguous states and Washington, DC, and is adjusted for Alaska and Hawaii. Because we are interested in how well the maximum benefit can help people afford the cost of a modestly priced meal in their communities, we take an average of the maximum benefit each household size can receive and adjust it for each household size’s share of SNAP enrollees in 2023. We then divide the monthly benefit by the typical number of meals we assume people consume each month. For the 2024 cost-of-living adjustment, we arrive at a per meal maximum benefit of $2.83 for the 48 contiguous states, $3.64 in Alaska, and $5.12 in Hawaii; the national average weighted by county-level population sizes is $2.84. For the 2025 cost-of-living adjustment, we arrive at the same per meal maximum benefit of $2.83 for the 48 contiguous states, though slightly different amounts in Alaska ($3.65) and Hawaii ($5.01); the national average weighted by county-level population sizes is also the same ($2.84).
 

How do we calculate the average cost of a meal?
We use weekly reported food expenditures from the 2023 Current Population Survey and divide by meals eaten per week. We restrict the responses to those from households with incomes at or below 130 percent of the federal poverty level, which roughly equals the SNAP eligibility threshold for gross income before deductions. We also restrict responses from people who are food secure, as food insecure families are likely underspending on food, even for a Thrifty Food Plan meal, because of limited resources. When calculating a national average meal cost across counties, we weight county meal costs by the estimated number of SNAP participants in each county. On average, the national cost of a meal for households meeting our criteria was $3.31 in 2023. We then used the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator to trend this upward to a meal cost in 2024; in December 2024, this estimate was $3.41.

How do we adjust the average meal cost for food prices by county?
We adjust the national cost per meal ($3.41) for the relative prices paid for the Thrifty Food Plan market basket in each county in the US. Our source for a county-level food price index is Feeding America’s annual Map the Meal Gap study, which is based on food price data contributed by NielsenIQ. We then translate the total market basket (including any applicable state and county sales taxes on groceries) into an adjustment factor that can be applied to any dollar amount. This adjustment differs by county, revealing differences in food costs at the county level.

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PROJECT CREDITS

This project is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. We are grateful to them and to all our funders, who make it possible for Urban to advance its mission. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation or to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Funders do not determine research findings or the insights and recommendations of Urban experts.

We are grateful for the data contributions from Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap study (supported by Conagra Brands Foundation), which uses food price data contributed by NielsenIQ to estimate county-level meal costs. We especially appreciate the assistance of Kassandra Martinchek at Urban and Adam Dewey at Feeding America in updating the analysis and reviewing final products.

RESEARCH Elaine Waxman, Poonam Gupta, and Craig Gundersen from Baylor University

DESIGN Brittney Spinner and Christina Baird

DEVELOPMENT Evy Park, Jessica Kelly, Rachel Marconi, and Ben Chartoff

EDITING Alex Dallman and Michael Marazzi

WRITING Rachel Kenney, Serena Lei, and Emily Peiffer

View the project on Github.