Illinois, COVID-19 & SNAP Benefits
By Jacob Walls & Cole Neder
As COVID-19 continues to spread across the United States, we continue to see the virus effect vulnerable communities at much higher rates. One of those vulnerable communities are recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) (aka food stamp recipients). Our study analyzes rural and metro Illinois counties with a higher rate of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients, to see if they experience a higher amount of COVID-19 cases per capita compared with other Illinois counties that have lower SNAP recipient rates.
Abstract:
We compared Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) user data to the ongoing spread of COVID-19 in Illinois. SNAP is designed to help millions of low-income citizens and households by providing a certain allotment of funds for buying food. During recessions, periods of high unemployment, and occurrences requiring disaster relief, the SNAP program has seen its fair share of increases in users. With an increase in SNAP applicants due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Food and Nutritional Services (FNS) has issued emergency SNAP allotments under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (See CBPP SNAP Report).
Study:
Statistics show that IL had 14% (1 in 7 individuals) of the population receiving SNAP benefits in 2019. The National average in 2019 was 12% (1 in 9 individuals) of the population (See CBPP IL Report). Recently, the Illinois Department of Human Services released information that Illinois will be giving out emergency SNAP allotments to users who do not receive the maximum amount of benefits for April, May, and June (See IDHS Policy Memo). These allotments started on or before April 20th.
For SNAP recipients to utilize their benefits, they must physically go to grocery stores and potentially risk exposure. Data that we have collected shows that a vast majority of IL counties have significant increases of confirmed COVID-19 cases during the period of emergency allotments becoming available. Through data comparisons between county COVID-19 rates and previous county data on SNAP users, we can see if additional SNAP allotments are partially contributing to the spread of COVID-19.
Figure 1: (Data by Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 tracker)
In a few instances, the rate of COVID-19 per day cases in Illinois spikes after the April 20th date where extra allotments were allocated out (e.g. between April 24th and May 5th). The graph above shows the amount of cases for each day in April. As stated above, these SNAP allotments were either given out on or before the 20th.
The late April COVID-19 spike could correlate with the SNAP emergency allotment period; however, other factors could be: The increased amount of testing done in Illinois during the same time period. To get a better understanding of this issue, we decided to break down county-level SNAP rates, COVID-19 cases, demographics, and poverty rates.
Figure #2: IL County Demographics
We compared poverty rates, SNAP participation statistics, and total COVID-19 cases for 26 Illinois counties. We picked these counties based on population comparisons with one another, apart from Cook County (Chicago). We broke down percentages between white and black individuals in each respective county.
We decided to investigate this data to get a better understanding of poverty rates and food deserts in Illinois. The USDA defines food deserts as regions with a poverty rate of at least 20% and where at least a third of the area’s population resides more than a mile from a supermarket. Out of these 26 counties, 24 have a black population with at least 20% living below the poverty level. This data table also shows that a majority of counties that have a higher percentage of its population living below the poverty level than the state average (12.6%) and/or have a higher SNAP percentage than the state average (14%) will have higher COVID-19 per capita rates.
Figure #3: IL County Poverty Rate Comparison
The graph above breaks down Illinois poverty percentages. The percentage of the population living below the poverty level (in blue), the percentage of whites below the poverty level (in orange), and the percentage of the black population living below the poverty level (in grey).
As mentioned above, there are a disproportionate amount of black communities living below the poverty line and in food deserts. We believe this to be a huge driving force when seeing increases in COVID-19 cases and deaths in communities of color. Food deserts require SNAP users to travel further to qualifying grocery retailers in order to use their benefits which means they are out in the open, which could open them up to infection. However, Illinois’ recent adoption of the SNAP Delivery pilot will allow recipients to use their EBT cards online and can help cut down on food disparities and hopefully reduce the amount of COVID-19 cases.
Recommendations:
We recommend the State of Illinois continue to focus on these hardest hit counties and their vulnerable communities by allocating resources to allow smaller retailers to partake in SNAP Delivery. Resources will be needed as retailers may (1) lack the needed scanning system, (2) need website & system development, and (3) lack a secure PIN (please see this blog by IGNITE Cities for a great breakdown of those issues). These updates are not cheap and smaller retailers may have trouble opting in because they can’t update their systems due to the financial barrier.
Another consideration are the delivery/processing fees. These barriers should not fall solely on SNAP users as it will deter them from using this online program.
Moving Forward:
There are many additional statistics that influence COVID-19 positivity such as the fact that people of color live in poverty, rely on public transit, need to shop more frequently for basic necessities because they are too poor to stockpile goods, they may live in small apartments shared with many families, and many lack health insurance and access to regular medical care. Johns Hopkins University has a great list here that puts these inequalities in a historical context. These inequalities stem from generations of structural racism. We intend to incorporate data on these topics into our existing research.
Within the next 3 months we plan to include data from the SNAP Delivery pilot program to see if there is a compelling decrease in COVID cases. It’s difficult to establish causation, but believe it would be helpful to see if it moves the needle. We will also be paying attention to the amount of online usage from SNAP recipients and if any other retailers will be granted access to not only sell online items, but to accept EBT cards (Walmart and Amazon are the only retailers properly equipped to handle both aspects of this bill).
