Food price inflation moderated in 2023, but families still felt the strain in their food budgets. Though the goal of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is to help families purchase the food they need, the maximum benefit rarely covers the cost of a modestly priced meal. Using county-level food price data from NielsenIQ, we compare the cost of a modestly priced meal with the maximum SNAP benefit before and after the US Department of Agriculture’s fiscal year 2024 cost-of-living adjustment took effect in October 2023. Overall, we find that despite the fiscal year 2024 adjustment, SNAP benefits remained inadequate throughout 2023:

• The average modestly priced meal cost $3.37 in the last quarter of 2023, 19 percent more than the average maximum SNAP benefit of $2.84.
• At the end of 2023, SNAP benefits fell short of covering monthly food costs by $49.29 for families with zero net income. In the first three quarters of the year, SNAP benefits fell $58.59 short of monthly food costs.
• The gap between SNAP benefits and meal costs was larger in urban areas than in rural areas. By the end of 2023, urban areas had meal costs 28 percent higher, on average, than SNAP benefits. The gap was 17 percent for rural areas.
• In the five counties with the largest gaps between SNAP benefits and meal costs, the gap remained above 70 percent all year.