SNAP: A History of Food Stamps

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – formerly known as Food Stamps – has been making headlines in recent weeks amid the ongoing government shutdown, which has left the welfare program without funding for the month of November.

What began as a modest relief effort during the Great Depression has expanded to serve more than 40 million people, costing American taxpayers around $100 billion a year.

The Beginning of Food Stamps

The Food Stamp Program – developed in response to the Great Depression by Agriculture Secretary Henry Wallace, the program’s first Administrator Milo Perkins, and others – assisted its first recipient on May 16, 1939. At the time, the program allowed beneficiaries to buy orange stamps reflecting their typical food purchases. “For every $1 worth of orange stamps purchased, 50 cents worth of blue stamps were received. Orange stamps could be used to buy any food. Blue stamps could only be used to buy food determined by the Department to be surplus,” according to the US Department of Agriculture.

From 1939 to 1943, the Food Stamp Program reached roughly 20 million people and cost $262 million. In the spring of 1943, the program was halted “since the conditions that brought the program into being – unmarketable food surpluses and widespread unemployment – no longer existed.” Perkins commented on the program’s apparent success:

“We got a picture of a gorge, with farm surpluses on one cliff and under-nourished city folks with outstretched hands on the other. We set out to find a practical way to build a bridge across that chasm.”

After the Great Depression, the Food Stamp Program remained shelved for nearly two decades as studies, reports, and legislative proposals sought to revive it. Then, on Feb. 2, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced the creation of Food Stamp pilot programs, which still required stamps to be bought but no longer mandated certain stamps for surplus food.

Beginning in Paynesville, WV, the pilot programs expanded to 40 counties in 22 states with 380,000 participants by 1964.

That same year, Congress passed the Food Stamp Act, which had the purpose of “strengthening the agricultural economy and providing improved levels of nutrition among low-income households.”

In the early ‘70s, Congress passed the Food Stamp Act Amendment and the Agriculture and Consumer Protection Act, establishing national eligibility standards, SNAP benefits, and other requirements.

On July 1, 1974, the Food Stamp Program began operating nationwide, and by October the service reached 15 million participants.

1980 to Modern Day

Additional legislation eventually eliminated the purchase requirement, and participation reached a new record high of 22.5 million by 1981.

In 1984, the first Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) began in Reading, PA, allowing recipients to “authorize transfer of their government benefits from a federal account to a retailer account to pay for products received.”

While participation briefly waned in the late ‘90s, it jumped to 28.2 million people in 2008. One year later, Congress passed the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act in response to the Great Recession, allowing SNAP benefit levels to increase.

Participation rose to 47.6 million in 2013 but slowly declined to 42.1 million in 2017.

Today, SNAP is the United States’ largest food assistance program. In 2024, the program served an average of 41.7 million participants per month, with federal SNAP spending totaling $99.8 billion. “The share of U.S. residents who received SNAP benefits in FY 2024 was 12.3 percent. The share of residents who received SNAP benefits varied by State, ranging as high as 21.2 percent to as low as 4.8 percent,” according to the USDA.

1. Food Stamps were first established during the Great Depression to help struggling Americans feed their families.
2. Participation ballooned to nearly 50 million people following the Great Recession in 2008.
3. SNAP is the nation’s largest food assistance program, serving more than 40 million people monthly.