For young adults, access to social safety net benefit programs can be crucial not only for meeting immediate basic needs during periods of instability but also for supporting long-term economic success. Yet many eligible young adults do not receive the benefits they qualify for.

We estimate how many young adults are eligible for three key safety net supports and the share of eligible young adults who receive these benefits. The three safety net supports we examine are food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), cash aid through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, and public and subsidized housing provided by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

We used the Analysis of Transfers, Taxes, and Income Security (ATTIS) microsimulation model to estimate young adults’ eligibility for SNAP, TANF, and public and subsidized housing. The ATTIS microsimulation model is a comprehensive set of computer programs that applies the rules of each program to each household in the American Community Survey data to estimate whether some or all people in the household are eligible for the program. 

For each program, program participation rates are estimated by dividing the number of people or households receiving the benefit by the number who are estimated to be eligible for the benefit—nationally or by state, in total and for specific subgroups. The numbers of people or households receiving the benefits in 2023 are obtained from the available administrative data for each program. 

This appendix serves as the technical documentation for the findings presented in the report Are Young Adults Eligible for Safety Net Programs Receiving Benefits? and provides detailed information on the preparation of the data and on the modeling methods for the three programs.