Washington - A new study by the Agriculture Department has found
that food stamps, one of the country's largest social safety net
programs, reduced the poverty rate substantially during the
recent recession. The food stamp program, formally known as the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, reduced the
poverty rate by nearly 8 percent in 2009, the most recent year
included in the study, a significant impact for a social program
whose effects often go unnoticed by policy makers. The food
stamp program is one of the largest antipoverty efforts in the
country, serving more than 46 million people. But the extra
income it provides is not counted in the government's formal
poverty measure, an omission that makes it difficult for
officials to see the effects of the policy and get an accurate
figure for the number of people beneath the poverty threshold,
which was about $22,000 for a family of four in 2009. "SNAP
plays a crucial, but often underappreciated, role in alleviating
poverty," said Stacy Dean,